One fine day
by Narutoscreed
Summary: The 'Land of Waves' arc doesn't end anything like it should, find out just how different things end up with a few major changes. Character death, I'll leave you to discover who. Follow Naruto as he becomes what he always dreamed. Ch3 earns the M rating
1. Chapter 1

One fine day….

Chapter one

Disclaimer: Listen up and listen well, if you think I own this then you're wrong. The characters are owned by Kishimoto-sama. I'm only going to put one of these in this fic since I really only need to do so once per story.

Author's Notes:- Don't ask me where this all came from, I wasn't going to write a story for quite some time. At least that's what I thought, just goes to show what I know. I'm borrowing a scene break convention that I saw in another persons fics as I think it breaks things up nice and clearly and I didn't want anyone to complain about not knowing where I changed the scene or perspective.

A note of warning, this is a divergence fic, meaning that I'm taking it in my own direction from a certain point, 'Guess where'. Major events that are not directly effected by the main characters in this story will still happen, i.e. the chunin exam and invasion by Oto and Suna, it will be different because, well I've changed events leading up to it.

Um, anything else to mention? Oh yeah, first fic so be a little kind with your reviews please. If I made any mistakes just let me know and I'll try to fix them.

/ Begin the story!! \

Naruto stared totally stupefied at the words he was hearing.

"You what?"

"You have taken my reason for living," the softly spoken words were accompanied by a wry smile, "What use could my master have for such a weak shinobi as I?"

"So you get beaten once and you're all like, just kill me? Like there's nothing you can do? You wuss!"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand. He is my only reason for living, without knowing him I would have died a long time ago. My only reason to exist is to do his bidding, kill who he tells me, die when he tells me. How can you understand that?"

"You're right, I can't figure you out at all. You talk as if you're just a tool, like this kunai," he motioned with the weapon in his hand.

"You're right, that's exactly what I am, that's what all shinobi are," the tone of the young boys' voice never faltered as he explained his ethos.

"That's bullshit! Ninja aren't just tools, not if you don't let yourself become one. We're humans, we got emotions and compassion, and, and, uh, we ain't mindless killing machines no matter what people try to tell us! Dattebayo!!"

"Oh how nice it would be if that were true, but I'm afraid you're naïve if you believe that. I am just a tool like I said, and I have outlived my usefulness. I wish to die, at least by the hand of the one who vanquished me. Please give me that much."

"I can't, no, I won't kill ya!"

"I see, I was wrong. You are not strong like I first thought. I believed that you understood what I told you a few days ago but I see I was mistaken."

"Hey! What d'ya mean I'm not strong."

"You are trying to show me mercy aren't you? You think that to leave me alive like this is a mercy, that I can repent and find another purpose? Then you're a fool! To leave me like this would be the cruellest fate you could imagine," Naruto looked at Haku with a sceptical expression, he'd lived through the cruellest fate he could imagine and was in fact still living in it and you didn't see him having a private pity party.

"Hah! Shows what you know!"

"Hmmm, well maybe I should prove my point since you aren't going to kill me," the missing nin turned away and started to hobble away.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to kill the girl since you won't protect your precious people, I'll make sure she dies slowly," he managed to put a vindictive edge into the last few words and then turned away to continue a journey he knew he didn't have the chakra to make. A moment later he smiled in satisfaction as he felt a massive chakra spike roar into being at his back.

Naruto couldn't believe what he'd just been told and it took a moment for the full intent of the words to penetrate his mind but when they did his fury knew no bounds. It was ten times worse than when the Uchiha bastard was killed, this was one of his precious people, one he'd protect at the cost of his own life a thousand times over. He didn't even ask the Kyubi for power, he just reached into the seal and tore out what he wanted. The exhilaration of the power flowing through his body, the sound as his blood roared as his heartbeat sped up and his muscles bulged. He didn't feel the numerous changes the demonic chakra wrought in his body as he became more foxlike in appearance as his teeth and fingernails grew into sharp points, and his eyes flashed from blue to blood red. He roared in challenge as he began to move in a dark red blur that headed for his opponent.

Haku turned as he felt the presence bearing down on him, "Thank you," having turned he could see that his death was assured this time, there was no shock of revealing his identity to stop it and the smile never left his face even as time slowed down. He'd heard the strange chirping noise for a few seconds now, and now that he had turned around he could see just what it was. The genin teams jounin instructor had managed to pin his master down and was about to unleash a jutsu on his hapless master that would surely kill him.

Without realising it Haku dug deeper into his reserves than he ever had before, no longer resigned to his fate, he had one last task left to do, a chance to redeem himself. He'd never know that for an instant he'd managed to open the first 'Celestial gate' and flooded his body with renewed power, or just how close he came to having his throat ripped out as Naruto swung blood-red claws through the space it had once occupied. Haku was too busy focusing on the shaft of pain that exploded in his chest as he shunshined into position to take the attack the 'Copy nin' had unleashed on Zabuza.

Naruto stumbled as his fist met nothing but air and then turned panicked at the thought that he'd been tricked again. Looking towards Sakura and the old man she was protecting he could see that Haku hadn't headed that way as he'd first thought. So where? Turning he scanned the bridge carefully until he came across the frozen tableau of his sensei with his fist pushed through the right side of Haku's chest and behind him the pinned body of the 'Demon of the Bloody Mist' as he callously watched his tool die a painful death.

/ Zabuza \

"You said my future was death? Heh, heh, but you've missed again, Kakashi."

Kakashi was staring at the mortally wounded youth in disbelief as said youth glared balefully right back at him, 'He jumped between… To save Zabuza?'

Zabuza closed his eyes for an instant before he opened them again, a movement so brief that if Kakashi had blinked he swore he would have missed it, and then the missing nin spoke.

"Heh, heh, that was brilliantly done Haku," he didn't need to see the smile that formed on his underlings face at those words, he just knew that Haku was pleased that he'd done something for his master in the end, of course neither of the jounin knew all that he'd done, not yet anyway. Then the energy just seemed to leave his young body and he sagged dragging Kakashi's arm down with the weight.

'The boy….is he dead?' he peered closer and noted that Haku was barely clinging to life even as the grip the boy held on his arm slipped a little due to lack of strength. The next thing he heard was a sound that instantly made him more wary as Zabuza shifted the grip on the hilt of his massive sword, 'Damn, he's going to come right through the kid to get to me!'

"I really did find a treasure in that gutter…" the large man yelled as he began to swing the sword downwards, "To think that he'd give me this marvellous chance in the end!!"

Kakashi wasn't going to stand around and wait for some big ass sword to end his life but he also didn't want the boys' body to be destroyed by it either, so he crouched down a little and wrapped his arms around the inert body. It was when he went to leap away that he discovered that the boy had frozen the deep puddle of water he'd been standing in thus trapping both of his feet, he let go of the body startled at the situation, even as his reflexes pulled out a kunai to attempt to deflect the zanbato since he didn't have time for even the weakest jutsu. The weight of the massive blade was too much for him as he felt his wrist snap violently, the sword barely paused as the hilt crashed into Haku's body pushing him aside as the blade itself cut into Kakashi's shoulder shattering the bones and severing arteries, blood sprayed from the wound in all directions.

Kakashi couldn't believe what had happened, it wasn't supposed to end like this, there was so much he wanted to do, so many regrets he wanted to abate. His eyesight fading even as he watched Zabuza turn towards the remainder of his team. He wanted to scream out a protest but couldn't find the strength to even do that much as his knees gave way and he crashed to the ground, the cold shock of blood loss already taking him, his eyesight faded fully and he knew no more.

Haku knew he was dead, no healer could cure the damage done to him in time to save his life, and he had no regrets. He'd done what he felt he needed to do. He'd saved Zabuza just like Zabuza had saved him all those years ago. Kakashi wasn't the only one who watched the swordsman turn towards the genin team Kakashi had brought with him, but unlike Kakashi he had just enough strength to voice his protest, even though it came out as a weak rasp.

"No…." Zabuza hearing the word turned around to face his apprentice, "Don't kill…" the words faded away as his dark brown eyes closed for the last time, the last thing he saw was the beloved face of the man he'd come to think of as his father.

The older mans' face softened as he looked down at the boy, his sole companion of five years. How could he refuse? It was his death wish after all. He would honour it, the genin would live, but the old man had to die or all of this was in vain.

"Hand over the old man and I'll let you live," he stated coldly as he turned towards the pink-haired girl. Just like his apprentice he felt the wave of malevolent chakra as it washed from the short blonde, "Seems I'll have to deal with your team-mate first though," and dismissed the weak girl from his mind which turned out to be a mistake as she launched a volley of kunai at his exposed back, none of which hit as he positioned the flat of his blade to intercept the incoming weapons using his remaining chakra he disappeared and moved past Sakura, the only evidence of his passing was a scream and spray of blood as the kunai held in her severed hand clattered to the cold stone of the bridge. The bridge builder didn't even see the massive blade as the jounin continued its swing through his body, nor did he feel any pain as he died instantly.

Turning away from the fallen pair he walked back towards Naruto who having seen his team-mate injured had reached further into the seal and pulled out even more of the demonic chakra. This turned out to be a mistake as the wear and tear the demonic chakra wrought on his body became too much and the symptoms of chakra poisoning set in causing a wave of fiery pain to flow and ebb through his body. The changes in his physique faded and as Zabuza approached he watched the blonde double over in agony.

"Aiiiiieeeeee!" the jinchuuriki collapsed to his knees as the agony threatened to tear his mind apart.

Zabuza didn't know what had just happened, to be truthful he didn't care too much other than to note that the kid was obviously a pathetic shinobi if he allowed a little fear to do that to him. "To think I thought you would be a threat. Phhft, you're nothing but a coward!" In an act of utter contempt the missing nin turned his back on his opponent and headed towards his protégé to pick him up. It was time to leave, moments later a swirl of mist rose from the bridge and the ninja from Kiri disappeared without a trace. Being gone meant that Zabuza missed the moment when Naruto gained back a little control of himself and looked up with hate filled red tinged eyes, his chakra claws gouging deep scores in the stonework of the bridge as he surveyed the damage.

"Kill you!" he growled as his vision faded again and unconsciousness took him. It was a promise, a vow or maybe a prophetic statement but for just a moment the chakra shell around him spasmed before dissipating fully.

/ Sasuke \

A few minutes after Naruto passed out the last of the Uchiha clan sat up groggily, an act he wasn't expecting since he'd fallen into the trap laid by Haku. 'Damn dobe, couldn't stay out of trouble for more than a moment and I had to go in and save his worthless ass, again.'

His mind flashed back to the thought of Haku being free to do whatever and looked around slightly panicking until he noticed that the ice mirrors were gone and so was the ice user. Looking around he began to see signs of the struggle that had ensued outside the ice prison he'd been trapped in, and froze. He was in motion before he even had time to think of a plan in case one was needed. First he went to check on the fallen body of their sensei, if he needed help he'd rather have the jounin than either of his team-mates. It didn't take long for him to discover that Kakashi wouldn't be helping anyone ever again. The pool of congealing blood showed that the silver haired ninja was dead. Looking around he checked Naruto next, at least he would be of some use in a fight, but again he found that the person wouldn't be any help but at least he was only unconscious and breathing steadily. Sakura was next and here he found the first of his conscious team-mates, though she was fully focused on the wound she'd received as she applied pressure to the stump trying to stop the blood loss.

"Hey Sakura. Sakura? Sakura!" he yelled the last hoping to startle her, it worked as she looked up with a whimper as the pain filtered through her shock.

"Sasuke?" she whispered hoarsely as her eyes widened at his presence.

"Yeah, it's me. Looks like you need a medic, so just hold on," he straightened up and was about to head off in search of a doctor when he decided it would be quicker to take her to the doctor instead.

"Naruto?" she asked quietly before her eyes drifted to the senbon still piercing his flesh, not that she could blame him since they looked both painful and precarious. She wouldn't want to be the one taking them out without knowing how much more damage she might do to him

"Hn, the dobe's alright, just knocked out. Just keep the pressure on that while I get you up." He had to wonder just how the hell he was going to do that without hurting her more. It took a while but Sakura was eventually brought to her feet. "I'm going to have to leave him here for a while, you need help more than he does and I can't carry you both." Sakura wanted to protest but knew it'd be a waste of breath, he was right, Naruto would be alright if they left him for a little while and she stood a good chance of bleeding to death if she didn't get help soon. Reaching an arm around her slender body to support her as she began walking towards the distant village, the bridge might have only been two miles or so long, but in their current state it felt like they'd been travelling for leagues by time they reached land. It was even slower going once they were on the road back to town as Sasuke needed to make sure they weren't walking into an ambush.

A little further down he was surprised to hear a grumbling murmur approaching them and quickly got off the road, it could be that the villagers had finally gotten some spine, or it could be Gato's samurai mercenaries come to finish the job that the missing nin had started, and in the state they were in Sasuke wasn't willing to take the risk. He hadn't forgotten about Naruto, but there wasn't much he could do in this situation other than pray that if they were Gato's men that they were as stupid as you'd hope mercenaries to be. It took a few minutes but the mob of people passed without incident and Sasuke moved back onto the road carefully checking for a rearguard, that there wasn't one proved to him that it was either the villagers or that the mercenaries really were that stupid.

"Okay, Sakura, stay with me!" he said sharply as he felt the girl draped over his shoulder sag.

"Hmmmm, stay with you," the young fan girl blushed as her mind took the implications of what he'd said totally the wrong way.

"Snap out of it! We don't have time for that crap," he patted her cheek and when that did no good he gave her a good ringing slap that was more sound than impact. Still it did the job as the jolt of pain refocused her mind. "Right, let's get into town."

It took another fifteen minutes to reach the market square they'd been shown a few days before, Sasuke took note that there didn't seem to be too many men around at the moment and wondered what it meant.

"Hey you! Where's the doctor?" the young scion of House Uchiha asked. Several people stared at him in surprise.

"Ain't you one of them ninja Tazuna hired?"

"Was that like a trick question or did you leave your brain in your other pants? Just answer my question! Where…is…the…damn…doctor?" It took every ounce of willpower not to pound the dumb bastard into the ground, before he got the answer he was looking for. He reserved the right to look the idiot up later though and give him a right kicking.

Sakura in the meantime was coming to the end of her endurance, she'd lost too much blood now and couldn't stay on her feet as consciousness fled. Sasuke turned startled eyes on her as she attempted to drag him down with her.

"You.. show me to the doctor now, or I'll gut you like a fish!" The mans eyes bulged now that things had been put into perspective for him and couldn't wait to give accurate directions, anything to get this red-eyed monster away from him.

"It's the building over there with the green door," Sasuke followed the pointed finger and saw a small clinic, the sign wasn't clear but he'd seen enough of them that just the feeling he got looking at it was enough to tell him what it was.

"Was that so fucking hard?" He couldn't believe he'd just wasted all that time with the man when his team-mate was in such trouble. Picking her up bridal style he carried her inert form towards the clinic not even stopping to open the door properly as he kicked it off the hinges. Inside the nurse looked over her bi-focals at the rude intruder.

"Excuse me young man…..Oh my, I'll just get the doctor." The chair she was in crashed back as she rose in a hurry.

"No need, Akiko. I'm here. Now what seems to be…. Oh dear…I see, you'd better bring her in here then," the man pushed open the door to allow Sasuke access to the examination room. "Set her down on the table there," not waiting for the young ninja to comply he rushed over to a set of cupboards and began removing supplies. Coming back he unceremoniously pushed a needle into Sakura's arm and injected the cloudy liquid into her.

"What's that?"

"Morphine, trust me, she doesn't want to be awake when I do this. Now tell me did you bring the lost hand?"

"Er, yes, it's here."

"Good, now let me see it," he took the appendage gingerly and turned it around and then over as his hands began to glow with a light green aura, "I, I don't know what to say….I'm afraid it's too late to save her hand. Maybe if I were better, but I'm not so….Hmmm, it was a fairly clean cut so this shouldn't take long. I'm going to attempt to divert these severed veins so that she maintains proper blood flow," lifting her eyelid he checked for dilation that would tell him she was properly under before he started.

"The girl is out, which is good, I need you to hold her to stop her moving. Just in case, you'll also need to apply a little pressure just here to stop blood flow for a couple of minutes." It took those minutes and a few more for the elderly doctor to find the severed arteries and use his small chakra skills to heal them seamlessly together, then he used a small bone saw to cut back the severed bone before sewing the open wound together, a judicious amount of the mans remaining chakra saw the damage well on the way to healing, but it would still take time before the pain went away and the scarring healed.

"There, it's the best I can do for her I'm afraid," the old man sighed gustily.

"Good," Sasuke said, it sounded callous in his ears as he said it, the wound would probably end Sakura's ninja career but better that than to be dead, "Keep her safe for me. I've got to go and get my other team-mate." With that he rushed out the door leaving a perplexed doctor behind.

"Crazy ninja," turning back to the pink haired kunoichi he took a glance at his watch so he could estimated how much longer she'd be under.

/ Elsewhere – approximately the same time \

Zabuza placed his burden down between the massive roots of a gnarled tree. Looking down at the body he gave a sigh of regret, the only emotion he'd allow himself to feel over the loss of his 'tool'. He'd leave the body here for the moment with a mizu bunshin to guard it while he went ahead and got his pay for this job. Not being the fool that most people thought he was he fully expected to be betrayed by Gato, the man was a snake. The kind of man who'd sell his own mother, if in fact he'd had one, if it meant he'd get a couple more Ryo to his name. So no, he wasn't expecting it to be easy, but he would be paid.

Two mizu bunshin and a henge later he was ready, following the two seemingly injured clones at a safe distance he watched as the guards let them into the business magnates stronghold. As the doors closed behind them the guards turned back to watching the hidden path with evil smirks on their faces.

The big man headed east around the base, totally dismissing the guards as insignificant scum. They were only samurai, worthless when it came to facing a semi-competent ninja, and Zabuza freely admitted to himself that he was much more competent than that. Sneaking in close to the wall he followed the path that Haku had discovered early on in their employment. Leaping to the top of the ten metre wall was nothing as he landed silent as a cat on the walls battlements. A guard made the mistake of being more alert than he should have been and died as a kunai passed through his throat, severing his spine on its way to land in the side of the wooden sentry box. The small cubicle gave off a muffled thump as someone within heard the knife strike and scrambled to gather weapons.

The large ninja leapt out into air, traversing the forty foot gap between the wall and the main buildings roof. Turning around at the half-way point he filled the doorway to the sentry-box with kunai and was satisfied to hear a startled gurgling sound followed by a muted thump as the body slumped to the ground. Turning again in time to land facing the direction he was heading he dragged out the loosened ventilation cover and headed inside. Giving a mental command to his clones to slow down he allowed gravity to take effect and dropped down a sixty metre shaft into the heart of the base, only his fingertips and toes served to slow his silent decent and as he approached the bottom he applied light chakra to the walls slowing himself even further. Walking through the maze of ventilation shafts couldn't have been easier, even if he was bent almost double with a massive blade on his back.

Security within Gato's base was laughable when you considered that he had enough money to build something that would be much more secure. He didn't know if it was arrogance or stupidity that led the rich man to think he was impervious to harm, but Zabuza wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth after-all it made his job that much easier.

Three minutes after he touched down on the outer wall he was looking down through a ventilation cover into a large room that looked much like the great hall of a Daimyo's palace, twenty metres wide and thirty metres long, the ten metre tall walls were adorned with rich wood panelling and silk hangings. The floor was covered in traditional tatami mats. None of this was of any concern to Zabuza though, he was more interested in the fat little man sitting on a dais almost directly below him, that and the two body guards at his back, taking quick note of where they stood and who they were.

Hearing a screen slide open he turned to the entrance as one of Gato's many aides strode into the room and straight up to the dais, kneeling to Gato as if he were indeed one of the Elemental countries Daimyo.

"Sir! Zabuza has returned."

"Hopefully more successful than the last time he did so?"

"I couldn't say sir, though he looks like he's taken significant damage. The kid that's always with him doesn't look too good either."

Gato paused for a moment to reflect on his good fortune before rubbing his hands together, Zabuza didn't need to see the viscous smirk on the mans face as he intoned, "Excellent. We'll have to arrange a reception worthy of the 'Demon of the bloody mist' then won't we," his voice turned oily for a moment.

"Yes, sir!" The man didn't need further instructions as this was almost standard procedure when they were dealing with missing nin. A minute after he left Zabuza heard a shuffling noise that indicated that the two rooms on either side of the 'Great Hall' were filling up with the mercenaries Gato favoured using. He'd be interested to see how this played out as silence fell a minute or so before the entrance to the room opened again to reveal the clones he'd created.

"Ah, Zabuza, and little Haku. How nice to see you."

"Don't give me that crap Gato, I've just come for my pay."

"I take it you've accomplished your task then?"

"Of course, though not without some difficulty."

"I see," the man said almost pleasantly, "Tazuna is dead and the bridge will now fail. That's good. Before we get down to business I have something else to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"Yes, it seems I have a place in my forces for someone of your ability," Zabuza was startled a little as he hadn't expected something like that from the man.

"And what makes you think I'd be interested?"

"Well you see…It's an offer you really can't refuse," he snapped his fingers and the silk screens on either side of the room opened to reveal nearly a hundred samurai.

"I see, so that's the way it is, is it? Well my answer is…..I'm no mans puppet Gato, and you just made a mistake," the hidden ninja smirked at the irony of a clone saying that it was no mans puppet before he turned to watch Gato's response.

"Oh I don't think so, in fact you just saved me a lot of money. A thousand Ryo to the man that kills Zabuza!" he yelled to his men and watched in satisfaction as they charged intent on getting that money for themselves. With any luck they'd kill the ninja and then go on to kill most of themselves off as well as they tried to be the one to claim the money. It'd save him even more money as most of the men out there were due to be paid or have their contracts renewed. Oh he did so hate to renegotiate contracts they always wanted more money than they were worth.

Zabuza watched as the men got half way to his clone, several of them dying to thrown kunai that the mass of men couldn't evade, then he removed the grill silently. No one noticed as there was a sudden clamour of weapons striking weapons at the far side of the room. Forming a few hand-seals that ended with Ox he muttered a quiet phrase and smiled as the world below turned to is favourite scene. Gato let out a yell as the mist descended since he knew what it meant.

"Protect me!" he screamed a moment later, his two body-guards drew their weapons and peered into the mist, a useless act as they couldn't see their hand in front of the faces. Zabuza wasted no more time, positioning his sword he dropped through the hole like an avenging angel, the massive blade, so cumbersome in the ventilation shaft proved to be useful now as it penetrated the neck of the left hand guard impaling his body and then the blade sunk into the ground. He let his hands slide down the hilt to the cross-guards which with a slight jerk showed themselves to be two concealed kunai, the first of which silenced the other body-guard as he cut the mans throat, the second came to rest with the tip under Gato's fat chins drawing blood and silencing the yelling man.

The battle at the far end of the room hadn't stopped just because of the mist either, the samurai knew they were in trouble, and so were attacking any perceived motion. A minute later when the mist finally cleared there were only three men standing, and each of them were heavily wounded.

"Hello Gato, happy to see me?"

"…"

"I wouldn't suggest nodding at the moment, old man, you might find that un-palatable," he paused to see if the man would get the joke, "But then I don't think you were in any danger of nodding were you?"

"…."

"Hmmm, we seem to be at a little impasse here now don't we? So let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a ninja, and his dog, they were happy together as they worked towards their future. Now this ninja allowed himself to be hired by a great merchant, a man so rich he could hire small nations if he chose. That man had a task that only a ninja could do and so he offered the ninja good money to do this task. The ninja toiled at the task and eventually he succeeded, but lo the merchant was an evil little man and chose to betray the trust of the ninja rather than pay him his rightful due. Now the ninja not being an overly vengeful man sought a way to resolve the situation without the need for blood-shed and do you know what he came up with as a solution so that everyone could live happily ever after?" he prodded the man with the kunai eliciting a wince, "Well are you going to answer me?"

"….the business man gave him his pay?" Gato offered hesitantly, quite aware of the trickle of blood making its way down his neck.

"Ooooh, so close, but no biscuit. You see the ninja knew that the price of betrayal is very steep indeed, and so to teach the business man that lesson he demanded to be paid ten times their agreed price."

"That's preposterous, I won't…." he stalled suddenly as the grip on him tightened and the blade moved again.

"I don't think you understand me old man, you see I'm not asking. You pay me what I just stated or die. It's your choice now so think about it carefully, but don't take too long. I mean this blade is heavy and I might decide that its not worth holding it in place any longer. Mmm, by the way did you know that it's possible to stab someone like this and even though the blade penetrates the brain they could still live, of course it wouldn't be much of a life, and there's always the possibility that the person could drown in their own blood. I think that would be a really bad way to die, don't you?"

"Alright, alright, I'll do it," the panicked man cried. Half an hour later Zabuza walked out of the main gate five hundred thousand Ryo richer, Gato walked just ahead of him at sword-point.

"So, it comes time for us to say goodbye. I'd like to say I'll miss you but we both know that'd be a lie. I will however give you a little forewarning, I intend to make sure the missing nin know all about how you deal with our kind. I don't imagine that hiring us will be a very good move for you health in the future. Well I won't be seeing you," and with that he sauntered off into the forest, he had some things to attend to before he left the land of wave.

/ Next morning \

Naruto opened his eyes abruptly as he bolted out of the bedroll.

"Gahh!" Man that'd been the freakiest, most grotesque nightmare he'd ever had. He'd dreamed it'd been night and he'd opened his eyes to a dark room, then after a moment his eyes had adjusted to the dark, and they kept adjusting until the room seemed to be in full sunlight, moving to the window he'd seen the moon, a nearly blinding orb hung low in the sky as he looked out on the forest that bordered Tazuna's home. He'd slid the window open silently and leapt out, he couldn't remember a time when he'd moved this fast. His eyesight wasn't the only thing changed, he could hear all the usual nightsounds but for some reason it was like radar, he kept getting messages like, 'Frog, sixty metres away, behind mossy rock to our right, Cicada above it ten metres in tree.' In fact the sheer amount of information was threatening to overload his mind. Then there was smell, and thinking about it now that he was awake he thought it was probably best not to think about smell too much as he'd smelt things he never even wanted to attempt to describe.

He kept moving for what seemed like an hour, a silent blur in the dark forest, as he passed the immediate area would become silent as if the small animals could sense a dangerous predator. He dodn't know where he was going but he got the sense that it was important as he headed out of the trees and onto a jutting headland. The promontory of rock pointed out to the deep ocean, and he could sense he was close to his target now. In the bright light of the moon he could see the recently disturbed earth, and next to it a crudely carved stone with just a single name on it.

"Haku" For some reason his dream persona had begun to dig into the soft loam until he uncovered the body of the young boy he'd faced in battle, it took a moment to notice that the body had no hair on its head, and that a bone seemed to be missing from the leg and he wondered for the moment what it could mean. In the meantime his hands hadn't been idle, he'd grabbed a kunai and shredded the hunter-nin uniform the boy had been wearing, then once he'd exposed the midriff he'd plunged the blade into the body and mad an incision, reaching inside he'd searched for a moment and then sliced again drawing out a bloody hunk of meat that proved to be the boys liver. Then to his horror he'd moved it to his mouth and torn some off, barely even chewing before swallowing the meat and then continued until it was all devoured. He'd reburied the body then and began the trek back to the house.

When he got back to the house he searched for a moment until he found the mortal remains of their sensei, Kakashi Hatake and against his own wishes he dragged the body outside where he repeated what he'd done to the body of Haku, with the addition of his left eye. When he'd finished he'd made a few hand-seals he'd seen Sasuke do a few times before calling out quietly "Katon: Gamayu Emudan," the shaft of flame that emitted from his mouth incinerated the body in mere moments. Then with his tasks done he'd slipped back inside the building where his dream had finished with him slipping back into bed and seemingly falling asleep.

He quickly ran through the dream and thought, 'Well that's one dream I definitely ain't telling anyone about,' moving off to the bathroom he pulled open the door and went inside to relieve himself, walking over to the sink to wash his hands he looked into the mirror, where he froze in shock.

Author's Notes:- So tell me what you think, Kakashi and Haku dead, Zabuza still alive, Sakura's lost a hand and Naruto's got a new macabre hobby. What does it all mean, where is it all going. Please review and let me know(What you think that is, I know where the story is going).

Katon: Gamayu Emudan Fire release: fire blowing.


	2. Chapter 2

One fine day

Chapter 2

No disclaimer, been there done that.

// Story begin \\

Shocked eyes met in the mirror as comprehension dawned, a hand rose to touch and then stilled as his eyes widened further. For the first time he became aware of the blood and dirt encrusting his fingers, matching the blood around his mouth and his stomach rebelled. Bile filled his mouth and he made a dash for the toilet before his roiling stomach finally gave in to the urge and expelled its contents in a bloody mass.

He wouldn't look at the mess he'd made, or acknowledge the stench of blood that filled the air as he pulled the chain and flushed. The thought running through his head, 'Not a dream!' over and over again. His body began to shake in reaction even as he gave into the urge to vomit again, and again. Twenty minutes saw the end of the episode for the moment, it also gave the other people in the house time to realise that he wasn't still in bed.

"Are you in there Naruto?" He just stared blankly at the door for a moment before attempting a reply.

"Yeah!"

"How are you feeling? You're alright?" Sakura sounded hopeful he thought, maybe she thinks she can stop worrying if I say I am.

"I'm fine," he lied as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth smearing the blood a little.

"Oh, good. So are you coming down stairs?"

"Erm, yeah. Just give me a minute." Turning back to the sink he washed his mouth out with tepid water then spent several minutes scrubbing his hands with a nail brush, looking at them critically he went after them again, and then again until the skin was a raw red before turning to his face. Meeting his eyes warily in the mirror after that he noted that he seemed different somehow, not that the mental trauma of finding out you'd done, 'that', wasn't enough, there was something else in his reflection that he kept missing. Giving up for the moment he left the bathroom and made his way back to his futon, rolling it up and getting dressed for the day in his favourite jump-suit. That proved to be harder than it sounded since he seemed to have had a growth spurt which cleared up one of the changes he couldn't pin earlier, it was a change in perspective as his eye-level had risen several inches, crossed with the fact he was broader across the shoulders and he began to wonder just what the hell the Kyubi was doing to him.

It had to be the demon fox, because, well it was the only thing that explained his actions last night. Somehow the fox had gotten loose and made him do all those things.

"……." The grumbling noise he heard in the back of his mind almost sounded intelligible, like a badly tuned radio channel or something. Ah well it probably wasn't worth listening too in anycase.

"…flesh….." Okay that was clearer, it seemed…..Naruto frowned in concentration as the next burst of 'static' began and found he could almost understand.

"Are you…..to me? Damn puny……." Naruto blinked for a moment, there was only one entity that spoke to him like that even if he'd only heard it once.

"Kyubi?" he sent back tentatively.

"No! I'm the Easter bunny, can't you tell from the ears? Not only are you weak, but you're stupid too. Who else you got hanging back here?" the voice trailed off into unintelligible mumbles for a moment.

"What the hell are you doing talking to me?" It wasn't that they hadn't talked in the past it was more that he happened to be awake and sitting on his rolled up futon. The flea bitten fox shouldn't have been able to talk to him.

"Well now that you mention it…You made this possible."

"Whad'ya mean?"

"Do you remember using my youkai yesterday?"

"Um," he scrunched his brow, "Er, what's youkai?"

"Demonic chakra, moron. Why, oh why couldn't my vessel have a modicum of intelligence?"

"Oi, why didn't you just say so then?"

"I did but you're just too stupid, it's a wonder you can walk and breath at the same time. And one of them should be automatic, but I'll let you utilize that puny brain of yours and figure out which it is."

"Are you done insulting me yet?"

"Why, no, I don't think I am, but I suppose we've got more important things to discuss than why your IQ is smaller than you are."

"Yeah like why you made me go out and do that," he didn't need to tell the demon what he meant as he flashed the dream sequence across his mind as he asked his question.

"I? You think I had anything to do with that?" How the fox managed to sound so indignant Naruto would never know.

"Yeah you fuzz-ball!"

"You'll address me as Kyubi-sama, or master, if you dare address me at all."

"Yeah, an you're trippin if you think I'd give you more respect than I give the Hokage." He wasn't sure what 'tripping' meant but he'd heard it used in a similar context before.

"My, well aren't we awfully brave saying things like that from way over there. Why don't you come a little bit closer and say it."

"No thanks, I'm fine just where I am. I ain't half as stupid as you seem to think!"

"That's really not much of a credit to you then, since I pegged your mental capacity somewhere around that of an earthworm. You haven't even asked why it's all your own fault or what my youkai has to do with it."

"Alright then tell me already baka-fox!"

"Well since you asked so politely….Where to begin? In the battle yesterday…yes it was only yesterday, you used my chakra to defeat that ice user."

"Haku," he interjected, "his name was Haku."

"Whatever, you think I care about the name of some useless fleshbag? Hah! Anyway everything would have been fine if you'd have left it there, but you allowed him to provoke you into using my youkai a second time. The second time you used slightly more than a tails worth of my power. That put you on the edge of your bodies ability to endure the presence of my youkai. The second time did some damage to your chakra circulatory system, again nothing irreparable but still debilitating. Then when that puling creature that had the audacity to call itself a demon attacked the pink haired vixen you like, that's when you made your final mistake."

"You mean I'm dead?" a shocked Naruto asked.

"No, baka," he ignored the sigh of relief, "If you were dead you wouldn't be talking to me and you certainly wouldn't have been talking to anyone on the living plane. No what you did was reach beyond the seal and pull out roughly three tails of my power, an amount you weren't ready to use even if you were at full health. Basically what you did destroyed what remained of your chakra system. If I had allowed things to stay as they stand you would be dead, but I don't feel like dying just yet so I made repairs. Unfortunately for you they're much more far reaching than just repairing the damage, instead I made modifications to your body."

"What do you mean modification?" again his lack of education let most of what the Kyubi said slip past him without understanding what it meant.

"Hmm, well it was a part of the seal you see, the original design drained a certain amount of my chakra to aid you in healing faster than normal, but there was a different aspect of your healing function that no one else knows about. The seal not only heals but it also adapts your body to make your body more resistant to the same type of damage in the future. Are you following me so far?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah I think so. You're saying I'm not human?"

"Oh no you were completely human…but eventually things like elemental jutsu wouldn't have effected you as badly as your body learned to absorb the energy rather than be damaged by it."

"What d'you mean were?" Naruto yelled still stuck in the first part of the Foxes explanation.

"Calm down baka-kit, your emotions will be the death of you one day. I mean you were up until yesterday."

"You made me a demon didn't you?" Naruto advanced on the Kyubi's prison with every intention of doing physical harm to the fox irrespective of their sizes.

"No, I'm afraid that while I'm powerful I simply don't have the ability to do that, only Kami himself can make changes like that. No, I did the next best thing, I made you Hanyou, half human and half demon. Of course I used myself as a template so you're half Kitsune. Which brings us to your little foray last night."

"But that was…"

"I already told you I had nothing to do with that…well I suppose that's not strictly true. You are Kitsune because of me so I suppose the instincts of a young Kitsune are indirectly my fault."

"Huh?"

"Let me see if I can explain this to you. Normal foxes in the wild eat small prey, rodents and birds and the like, occasionally they'll come across the carcass of a larger animal. When they do they tend to eat quickly and try to get the most nutrition out of the carcass, that usually entails eating something like the liver. In a sense that's what you did, you took something from the bodies of each of the stronger people who died yesterday. Being Kitsune, you didn't need to eat the liver, you could have eaten anything including hair or bone as long as it contained a trace of the genetic materiel. You did much better than I did when I was at your stage of development, when I was as young as you there were no ninja like the ones that exist now. There were no blood-limits." Kyubi had been watching the boy as he spoke and seen that he was losing him as his eyes glazed over and decided to do something about it.

Taking in a massive amount of air the demon fox yelled in Naruto's mind, "BAKA!!!!" The shock of the sound knocked Naruto flat.

"What was that for!?"

"Pay attention idiot. This is important. In essence you used the genetic material to adapt your body. You have gained quite a bit by doing what you did along with the natural abilities of a Kitsune."

"Like what?"

"Well there's the increase in sensitivity to light, meaning you can see in the dark."

"Whu? So that was real? That's why I thought it was all a dream, I mean I can't see in the dark and yet I could…."

"Hmm, true. You also have increased your hearing range, you can hear higher pitched sounds than a human can. You also have augmented hearing. Try it, push a little chakra into your ears…no! Not that much, what are you trying to do? Blow your ears off? That's better….good now turn your head a little until you find something worth listening to. Now the two I just mentioned are natural abilities of the Kitsune, we'll have to wait for your body to adapt to find out what else you've gained."

Naruto listened carefully since the information was actually interesting before he did as he was bade and tilted his head a little then began to scan around until he heard, turning his head back a little he swept past the voices again, "…That dobe, I….." On the next sweep he got it nailed perfectly, he could hear a conversation taking place downstairs between Sasuke and Sakura as if he were in the room with them.

// \\

"Don't ask me, I went and told him to come down stairs."

"Do you think he's alright?" The unknown eavesdropper dismissed the tone in Sasuke's voice, it couldn't have been concern. He must have taken a few more hits to the head than he thought he had the day before if he believed that for a moment.

"Well I don't know Sasuke, he seems alright but he was throwing up when I got up there," Sakura trailed off hesitantly not sure how to finish.

"The doctor did say that might be a side effect of the chakra poisoning. I still haven't figured out how he got chakra poisoning, that usually takes someone else's chakra interfering with your own, and you said that no one else came near him."

"He did try to kill that boy."

"Hn. Maybe but we still don't know that, there could have been another explanation. Maybe Kakashi-sensei managed to break the ice-dome. I know one thing for certain, the dead-last of our class doesn't have as much chakra as you said was present, and he certainly isn't malevolent," he admitted the last begrudgingly not willing to give Naruto any credit.

"That doesn't make any sense though, Kakashi had his hands full dealing with Zabuza," she paused as Sasuke snorted, "that wasn't nice Sasuke, I'm pretty sure he would have won if that Haku boy hadn't interfered."

"Maybe, but he didn't, and now we're in trouble. We've got an A rank missing nin running around that could beat our sensei, not to mention Gato and his army of mercenary thugs. Naruto's just getting up from whatever happened to him yesterday, I'm still sore from being stuck with so many senbon, and you…..How are you doing at the moment?" he stopped as she glared at him, nothing beats infatuation like sticking your foot in your mouth, "I know stupid question, but are you in pain, can you fight? That's what I meant, I mean none of us are going to be much use in a fight plus we're only genin for Kami's sake."

"No I'm not in pain, it just itches like crazy. I think I can fight a little, but you're right we're in trouble and it doesn't help that sensei's body disappeared last night."

"No need to worry there, I found his charred remains outside, they're like ten metres from the door."

"Oh….Are you sure it's Kakashi? I mean, if it's charred how can you tell?" She watched as Sasuke's eyes widened.

"You're right, it was mostly ash, the only thing that made me think it was Kakashi was the head-band. Shit, I was hoping it was a Konoha hunter-nin or something disposing of the body so enemies couldn't get his secrets."

"But surely if it had been a Konoha ninja they'd have stayed to help us, or even let us know they had disposed of the body," Naruto blinked as he heard their conversation turn into an area he wasn't ready to face just yet.

// \\

"Oh shit, they found Kakashi, what do I do now?" he let the chakra slip from his ears as he panicked.

"First you stay calm," came the commanding voice of the nine tailed fox.

"But…."

"I'm a fox, I'm not interested in buts, if you want to talk about them go talk to an Inuzuka. I just told you to stay calm, if you panic you'll make mistakes and make them even more suspicious of you. As for the rest of it, just say you remembered the same conversation Kakashi had about the hunter-nin and why they get rid of the bodies."

"So I could say I woke up last night and burnt it because I thought we should?"

"You could take it a step further and ask them why they didn't already do it. Anyway, you'd better get down there now before they think up anything else."

"Uh, right," it still made him feel queasy to know that he'd done what he'd done last night, but he felt a little better knowing that it hadn't all been his fault. Then there was the fact that he was going to get the chance to rub the Uchiha-teme up the wrong way, since he'd beaten Zabuza's apprentice while the Uchiha 'Prodigy' lay oblivious to everything around him..

Naruto steeled himself for the confrontation that was about to happen when he told them part of what he'd done last night, they wouldn't understand it and he wouldn't blame them in the least. It only made sense if you didn't look at it too closely, it wasn't something most genin would even be thinking about. Now that he thought about it though, it did kind of make sense, Zabuza had made mention of the fact that Kakashi was a famous ninja who was in several Bingo books for other hidden villages which meant that there was a bounty out for him and also they'd pay good money to learn some of the secrets held in such a high ranking Konoha ninja's body. With his decision made he pushed the door to their room aside and stalked downstairs.

// \\

"Morning Sakura-chan," he smiled widely at the pink-haired girl before turning to the dark and surly presence in the room, "Teme."

"It's afternoon dobe," Sasuke scowled at his team-mate.

"Really? So I've only been out for a few hours?"

"Try thirty or so Naruto, you had me worried," she trailed off when she saw the grin widen on his face.

"Sakura-chan was worried about me?" Wham an irate Haruno stood over the prone body of her most irksome team member as she flexed her good arm. 'Cha! Take that Baka!' inner Sakura yelled as she surveyed the damage done.

"Oi you two stop it," he glared at an elated Sakura before he watched Naruto sit up rubbing his head, "We've got bigger problems at the moment."

Naruto let the false smile he'd been keeping up to slide off of his face, "Yeah I know."

"Yeah like you know anything worthwhile, so why don't you give us the benefit of your in depth analysis of our situation?" Sakura sneered at the academies dead-last.

"Alright, to start off there's the fact that we're a rookie genin team without a jounin-sensei. The missing nin who killed a high level jounin of our village is still out there somewhere, doing what we don't know. All of us are injured so even if we wanted to do something we're too weak to do it. We've failed our contract, Tazuna's dead and Gato still has an army behind him, which we can't deal with because of our injuries. The townspeople are probably terrified now that there's no one to protect them. Oh and then there's the fact you didn't dispose of Kakashi's body when you should have," Naruto finished ticking off imaginary points off on his fingers and looked up at his team-mates, "What?"

Sakura twitched in shock that Naruto was able to reel off so many of the points she and Sasuke had just spoken of, Sasuke on the other hand was reeling from the implication of Naruto's last point.

"Are you saying you're the one who got rid of Kakashi's body?" Sakura froze at Sasuke's words as she finally worked through Naruto's words and reached the same conclusion.

"Er, yeah. I woke up last night and couldn't believe that you hadn't already done it. After sensei made a point of telling us how many secrets a ninja's body could reveal about a village," he didn't say it but the tone implied, 'and you're supposed to be the intelligent ones on the team?'

"but that was Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura exploded.

"Yes that's right it 'was' Kakashi-sensei. It isn't anymore, it's just a lump of flesh that can reveal secrets about our village. I hate to agree with the dobe but we've got bigger problems than that. We need to decide what to do now, do we stay or do we go back to the village?"

"I say we stay and try to help the people here! We promised and I won't go back on my word!"

"Alright anyone who isn't an idiot gets a vote," Sasuke smirked at the outraged expression on Naruto's face, "Look it simply isn't practical to stay, we don't have the experience to pull something off like this."

"That's the problem, how do we get off of the island? I mean we arrived by boat but since Kakashi died Gato's tightened his grip on the island, he's shut down all communication with the mainland and there are boats patrolling off shore." Sakura motioned with her damaged arm and brought it to the attention of Naruto for the first time. It was so quick that he almost missed it but the angry red appendage snagged his eyes and he followed it until she pulled it back into her lap.

"Sakura?" he spoke quietly.

"Yes?"

"Who hurt your hand?" he knew who he suspected but he needed to hear it from her mouth.

Sakura flinched at the mention of her wound, the pain of loss might be gone for the moment but there would be other times when she would feel it as she found more things she couldn't do anymore. She'd almost resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't be able to follow her dream of being a powerful kunoichi alongside Sasuke.

"Zabuza did it just before you collapsed," it brought to mind other questions she wanted to ask, such as what was that red chakra that had shown in his aura yesterday. She watched in shock as Naruto clenched his fists, a low hiss came from his as he tried to rein in his anger but it quickly became too much and the anger began to slip out. The chakra that flared wasn't a normal blue but the intense blood red chakra they'd seen yesterday.

"I'm going to kill him," he looked up and Sakura stepped back when his blood-red eyes met her own, "I'll gut him like a fish for you Sakura. That's a promise!" Even Sasuke was wary of this more primal seeming Naruto, the whisker marks on his face were more delineated and his canines seemed to have lengthened while his whole face thinned down. If he had to pick an animal that Naruto looked like he'd have said without hesitation that he looked even more foxlike than he'd ever looked before.

Sakura didn't know how to respond to the intense emotion she could hear in his voice when he vowed to make the missing-nin pay for hurting her. A part of her wished that it had been Sasuke who'd done something like it for her, but she knew that he reserved his hatred for his brother.

"Er, thanks. Um, Naruto? Do you think you could calm down a little?" He reverted back to normal so quickly that the pair had to ask if it had all been some kind of henge or genjutsu that they'd been subjected to.

"So, did we come to any conclusions?" Sasuke decided that someone needed to get to the bottom of their situation.

"Well we can't leave, Gato's blocked everyway I can think of and if we stay we're going to need reinforcements. Trouble is he's cut off communications, so how do we get word out?"

"We could steal a boat," Naruto suggested.

"Baka, I just told you we can't get through the blockade!"

"What if the boat doesn't look like a boat? We could henge it to look like something else."

"It might work," Sakura conceded, "Do you know how to henge something else of that size?" At Naruto's shaking head she sighed, she didn't either and Sasuke was known for only being interested in combat oriented jutsu so he wouldn't know either.

"What about a messenger bird?"

"Unlikely to work since we didn't bring one with us and there probably aren't any on the island that would go to Konoha." Sasuke grunted apathetically as his idea was shot down just as fast as Naruto's.

"Who said it had to be a bird?" Naruto interjected excitedly.

"What do you mean Naruto?"

"What about a clone?"

"Eh? What good's that going to do us? If we could get a clone off the island we could get off it ourselves," Sakura was seriously thinking about decking him again.

"Yeah, but who says a clone has to be human shaped?"

The three teens shared a look for a moment before Sakura asked, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Naruto grinned before replying, "I don't know Brain, where would we get that much taffy? ….."

"If the dobe says 'Narf!' I swear I'll kill him," Sasuke said conversationally to Sakura.

Sakura and Naruto shared a look before they turned and stared wide eyed at the last remaining Uchiha, Sakura didn't even blink as she reached out and smacked the back of his head.

"Ouch! What the hell was that for? Hit the dobe if you want to hit someone!"

"But that was a joke, and the Sasuke I know," 'and love' she added silently, "would never make a joke like that."

"Yeah there's no way you're Sasuke. He's got a stick shoved so far up his…"

"Naruto! Finish that statement and I'll kill you!" Sakura wasn't done yelling yet but Sasuke interrupted.

"You can't," Sasuke said.

"Why not?"

"How long can you hold a clone for Sakura?"

"Um, about half an hour. Why?"

"And I can hold one for maybe three hours. What about you Naruto?"

"Um," Naruto thought about it for a moment, "Is there a limit?" He'd never had any problem with his clones running out of chakra mainly because they; didn't last that long in a fight. He had a few he'd left at home though for security purposes and they'd been active pretty much since he'd learned the Kage Bunshin technique several months ago. Sakura stared at him as if he was stupid for even asking such a question.

"So you see, even if we were able to form the clone it wouldn't have time to get to Konoha and deliver the message. Another thing is that I can't form a solid clone yet, I haven't watched Naruto use the Shadow clone technique with my Sharingan activated, and they use more chakra than a normal bunshin," he said patiently.

"Okay so now that we've figured out that Naruto is the only one who can send the message, what's to stop me from waiting until he's delivered it and then killing him?"

"Sakura-chaan's being mean Sasuke!"

"Shut up dobe. Let's just get this over with, the sooner the message is on the way the better."

"Ooooh Sasuke's so cool," inner Sakura squealed, Sakura didn't even bother paying attention to the voice until she noticed Sasuke and Naruto watching her in shock, "Um, I said that aloud didn't I?" she didn't need Naruto's emphatic nodding to confirm it, "Hold on a second guys, I've just got to hunt down the voice in my head and hurt it," and with that a furiously blushing Sakura closed her eyes.

Naruto turned to Sasuke, "Was that freaky or what?"

"I don't know, I think that describes most of the girls I know. Now let's leave her alone while you make a bird shaped clone." Ten minutes later Sasuke looked down at the worst clone he'd ever seen, it was even worse than the times Naruto had tried to use the bunshin technique in the academy. "Damn it Naruto concentrate, it doesn't even look like a bird."

"I am concentrating, it's just that I don't watch birds so I haven't got a clue what to make it look like. Go on try it, picture a bird in your head and then make a clone based on it." Naruto snickered a minute later when Sasuke's attempt at a clone proved to be worse than Naruto's.

"Alright I get the point. Do you think you could copy a bird if you saw one?"

"Yeah that's easy," he declared. It was a quarter hour later that Sakura found them outside staring down at the ugliest bird she'd ever seen.

"That's got to be the worst attempt at a clone I think I've ever seen Naruto."

"Um Sakura, that happens to be an exact replica of a bird that was sitting on the pier a couple of minutes ago."

"Eh? Then that's one uuuuglly bird," Sakura said.

"Heh, gotta agree with you there Sakura but then it doesn't need to be pretty to fly." With that the clone flapped its wings and lifted into the air like a rocket.

"Damn it Naruto it's too light," Sasuke yelled as the clone dispersed under the force of its assent.

"Alright, um, there that should do it. Bird clone technique!"

"Well that's an original name for it," Sakura smirked as she unconsciously cradled the stump in her good hand.

"It doesn't really matter what we call it as long as it works. Right lets try again." The bird flapped its wings and lifted slightly, another flap and it was almost head height. It took another twenty minutes of experimentation for Naruto to figure out how to make the bird fly parallel to the ground.

"Now that we've got that down it's time to figure out what to put in the message."

"Why bother? It already knows what to tell Ojiisan," he sighed as the others looked at him skeptically, "You guys forgot it's a clone didn't you? This is gonna be priceless, I'd love to see the expression on the old mans face when my clone appears. Mass bird clone technique!" Naruto quickly formed the handseal and watched satisfied as nearly fifty clones of the ugly bird appeared around him, "Now you all know what the message is, split up and get there quick. The quicker you are the more likely we are to survive. Alright go!" The birds took off in a flurry of white wings and rapidly disappeared over the sea as they spread out.

"Now all we can do is wait," Sasuke sighed, he really hated feeling this weak and resolved that if they lived through this he'd train harder than he ever had in his life. He'd have to get back to the Uchiha compound first though so that he could go through the clan scrolls on the Sharingan and discover what it could really do since Kakashi hadn't really trained him in its use yet.

// \\

Zabuza Momichi looked up from the wreckage of the third patrol boat that had dared to challenge his passage from the Land of Waves. His ex-employer hadn't wasted any time in tightening the noose on the small island nation, to the point that no one was allowed access to a boat of any description, those foolhardy enough to try were dealt with, with lethal force. Zabuza on the other hand hadn't broken any of Gato's new laws since he was taking a nice stroll across the narrow straight that separated the two land masses from one another. The only problem was the inconvenience of having to stop occasionally to destroy another boat filled with samurai too stupid to know when to quit. The walking on water bit should have told them they were in over their heads but at least all that was nearly over, all he had to do was cover another sixty metres or so and then walk up a two hundred foot cliff, a feat that was child's play for a ninja of his ability.

He winced slightly as he remembered his apprentice and the time he'd spent teaching him such simple tasks. He thought he'd laid all of that to rest the day before when he'd buried the child but it seemed that he'd flet more for Haku than he knew. For the first time in a long time he felt the stirrings of loneliness, though he didn't bother to label it. Thankfully he was distracted from following that line of thought when a seagull squawked nearby, a little startled that he'd allowed a living creature get so close without him noticing it.

A quick glance told him that it was just a seagull, another and he was second guessing himself since seagulls weren't known to fly in formation, sure they flocked together but to form a line and space themselves twenty metres apart was not natural. The clincher though was when the nearest bird came in closer to investigate him it circled him twice before it seemed to come to a decision and promptly flew away. Zabuza winced when the bird crashed headlong into the cliffface that was now only thirty metres away.

"Damn, that's one stupid bird, not to mention ugly…." He trailed off when he saw the tell-tale smoke of a dispersing clone.

// \\

He wasn't the only one to wince either as the person responsible for the clone suddenly had the memory of impacting a cliff at nearly forty miles an hour shoved into the forefront of his brain along with the last memories of the bird clone. It took a couple of minutes for him to process them and figure out what it all meant but when he did he came to two conclusions, no make that three. The first was that murdering bastard that killed their sensei was leaving the island, which was good, the second was that he loved the sensation of flying high above the ground, it was even better than tree soaring, and thirdly there was the fact that he hated landings.

In the meantime neither of his team-mates had noticed his distraction, Sasuke was busy getting some of the miniscule food supplies they had left together so they could have lunch and Sakura was watching him since he'd made it clear she shouldn't be doing very much of anything in her current condition. In truth Sakura was feeling sorry for herself now that the reality of only having one hand was starting to sink in, and the realization that her life had changed kept slamming into her every time she reached for something out of reflex and found she couldn't lift it with her stump. That and the fact she was beginning to feel useless to Team 7 saw her enter the beginning of depression.

"Heh-he-he," Naruto's chuckle broke the others attention as they looked up, there hadn't been a great deal to really laugh about so far today though they'd tried.

"What's wrong with you Naruto?"

"It looks like we're gonna be alright guys," Naruto grinned at his friends.

"How do you figure that dobe? We're still stuck on this island with all these people trying to kill us," Sasuke's glare was extremely effective at cowing his hyperactive team mate, especially with the Sharingan whirling madly.

"But, the one we were worrying about is gone," Naruto protested.

"You'd better explain that or I'm gonna knock you into next week."

"One of the bird clones saw one of Gato's picket boats explode a little while ago and went to see what happened."

"Who cares what happened! That's one less group of mercenaries we'll have to deal with."

"Would you let me finish! Okay when it got closer it spotted someone walking away from the wreckage, turns out it was that Zabuza guy. Anyway putting the facts together it looks like he's leaving and him and Gato aren't on good terms no more," he finished triumphantly with a foxy grin.

"Or they want to make it seem that way so we'll come out of hiding. It might have slipped your feeble mind but there're still a couple of hundred mercenaries out there," Sasuke sneered.

"Hold on a second Sasuke-kun, Naruto might be onto something. It's not like we've been trying to hide," she winced as she thought of how stupid they'd been to not bother hiding, "Gato's men could have found us at any time, they knew who hired us so it wouldn't have been hard."

"Yeah and if we can't hide from these guys for a couple of days until help arrives then we don't deserve to wear these hitai-ate," Naruto thumbed the metal plate on its silk band.

"Okay now that we've got all that sorted, Naruto go pack the gear while I get more supplies," the dark haired boy directed.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Keep an eye out for any enemy movement." Just as he finished saying that and Naruto had almost risen to go upstairs the front door crashed open causing them all to reach for weapons.

// To be continued \\

Authors Notes:- I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the reader response to my stories first chapter but I was kind of expecting it to disappear quickly in the sheer mass of Naruto fanfics being updated everyday. So here I am hoping for better response as I release another chapter. It's taken me a couple of days to write and get this polished enough where I'd release it, on the other hand it takes only a couple of minutes to post a review to let me know what you think of it.

So hit that (Submit Review) button and let me know how it's going.


	3. Chapter 3

One fine day

Chapter 3

Disclaimer:- "……"

Authors notes:- Can't actually think of anything I need to put here at the moment. Though I would like to thank all the people who reviewed, I look forward to those. They help me make the story better, hint, hint. Oh, that was what I forgot to put in, this chapter is not for the faint of heart, there's gore, torture, slavery, and a number of other adult concepts; If you're easily offended I suggest you don't read this chapter.

I believe that I've kept everyone in character as much as possible, Gato, is a slimy coward, he'll kick you when he knows you can't retaliate but he'll run if you can. Naruto in parts of this chapter will seem OoC until you understand that he'd being guided by his guest. Okay I think that covers everything.

/ Land of Waves, Tsunami's kitchen \

Naruto nearly panicked as he grabbed two of his kunai, one in each fist, if that was the enemy finally coming to get them then they were probably in trouble. Though he had no intention of going down without a fight. Looking at the situation there was only one real way to get into the room and that was the door all three of the pre-teens were facing. There was a window on the opposite wall and it was certainly large enough to allow entry but it wouldn't be any kind of way to sneak up on three ninja.

His mind flashed through the possibilities as he heard footsteps approaching. If it were samurai they'd come rushing through the door, further examination told him that experienced fighters would be expecting ambush so they'd be expecting attack from the sides as they entered. Looking around the room he started to grin as he thanked his sensei for teaching him the tree walking exercise, they might expect attack from the sidds but what about above and behind. As is so often the case with Naruto he was already in motion before he even reached a decision, flipping in mid-air he adhered his feet to the ceiling and crouched down(or is that up) with his back against the wall.

Sasuke remained silent as he gave Sakura her instructions via hand-signs. She was a little non-plussed that she'd been relegated to covering the window, it didn't take long for her to figure out why either. Sasuke didn't think she could fight with just the one hand. Noting swat Naruto had done she decided that it was a pretty good idea and leapt into the corner of the room and looked down at the window from the side, knowing that she was highly visible and might give an enemy warning she tried for a single handed henge. A moment later a bright pink cob-web fluttered in an errant breeze as her chakra manipulation didn't quite work the way she wanted it to, though no-one knew it as they weren't watching her. Sasuke stayed on the opposite side of the table from the door knowing it'd give him a little more time to deal with the enemy as they'd have to come around the rather large piece of furniture first.

They were all slightly disappointed a moment later when The familiar figure of Tsunami bolted through the door, Naruto wasn't quick enough to stop his reflexive descent that put him directly behind the older woman.

"Hey Tsunami, you should know better than to run around like that," he trailed off as he spotted the totally panicked expression on her face, "What's wrong?"

"He took them! I've got to hide, I've got to get off of the island…" Sakura slapped the older woman.

"Slow down and tell us what's wrong." Even though she'd just been slapped Tsunami appeared a lot calmer as she took a breath in preparation to explain.

"I was in town with Inari, we were making preparations for my father's funeral when Gato's men marched into town and began rounding them up," she sobbed a little as she remembered the shock as people had started running almost immediately.

"Who? Who were they rounding up Tsunami?"

"The women, anyone between the age of fourteen and thirty they just grabbed them. Anyone who protested or tried to stop them they killed, it didn't matter. They dragged mothers away from their children, killed the men who tried to stop them."

"Why? What do they want them for?" Naruto asked with a shocked expression on his face.

"I overheard some of them talking, they said they were going to enjoy breaking in the older ones for Gato's brothels." The two boys didn't know what she meant by 'breaking in' but if the expression on Sakura's face was anything to go by then it couldn't be anything good.

"Those bastards, I'll kill them…"

"What are we going to do, there's still too many of them."

"We're going to act like ninja that's what, we're going to make them regret what they're doing, but not for too long," Sakura's voice was as cold as ice as she bvegan outlining her ideas. Twenty minutes later the three were on their way into town, they'd start small and work their way up.

// \\

Naruto dashed across the road, he was moving quickly but nowhere near as fast or silently as he could, that wasn't what he needed here. He smirked as he heard the men shout out for her to stop.

"Damn it, I thought they'd done a thorough sweep of the town."

"They did," the second samurai said as they started chasing after the woman who contrary to their orders hadn't stopped, instead she'd thrown a panicked look over her shoulder and sped up.

"Then how'd they miss a looker like that?" he pointed at the voluptuous blonde who had just turned into an alley up ahead, "don't let her get away or Gato'll have our balls. She'll be worth a fortune." The men grinned at the thought of the bonus they'd get for her as well, if they were lucky she wouldn't be a virgin and they'd have the right to break her in as well, but the added bonus for a virgin would suffice if it came to that.

Running into the alley the five men clattered to a halt as they surveyed the situation with wicked grins on their faces as they watched the blonde back up against a tall wall and watch them approach.

"Don't worry little girl, we won't hurt you," the lead man cooed as he approached her with his men spread out behind him, there weren't any gaps so the girl wasn't going to escape. His viscous leer widened as he got a closer look at the blonde and decided that maybe they could have some fun after-all, Gato never need know that she was a virgin. So intent was he on making sure there was no chance of an escape that he barely felt the tug on his shoe as he sprung a trap, he whirled around with his sword in his hand ready to face the weapons that were even now whistling as they approached at high speed. He even managed to block several kunai while his men fell around him in sprays of blood where the blades nearly tore through their bodies. He didn't even hear the approach of Sakura as she rammed a knee into his spine knocking him flat on his face and resting her full weight between his shoulders.

He landed on a couple of the blades that had hit him and yelled as they were forced even deeper into his body, he knew that if he didn't get medical help he'd be dead of blood loss very shortly.

"How's it feel?" a females voice hissed close to his ear, he could see pink hair out of the corner of his eyes as he whimpered as the body on top of him shifted its weight into an even more uncomfortable position.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely feeling the life drain from his body, "have mercy."

"Of course," she said casually, " the same mercy you showed the people of this village." The man didn't even have time to scream as the heavy bladed kunai punched into the nape of his neck and severed his spine as it was pushed up into his brain. Sakura wrenched the blade making a sickening crunching sound as she withdrew the blade and wiped it on the mans tunic.

Naruto who'd dropped the henge approached carefully, she'd been like this since the fourth group they'd killed, a little dangerous to get near until she was paying attention to her surrounding again. This group brought their tally up to forty six samurai so far and they hadn't even made a dent in the estimated troops that Gato kept. They were keeping Sasuke in reserve for the moment so that when they needed to take out a lot of troops they'd have his fire jutsu to do it.

"Sakura? Sakura? You can get up now," he stopped a couple of metres from her, he'd been surprised earlier when she'd gone for him and didn't want a repeat.

"Huh?"

"You can get off him now Sakura, he's as dead as he's going to get," Sasuke said as his head appeared over the edge of the roof. Both of the boys watched as Sakura stood up, she grabbed the mans wakizashi from his belt and attached the weapon to the bandolier over her right shoulder. Not that she was the only one to take weapons from the bodies of their victims.

"Right," she said resolutely, "Lets go." They walked away leaving the bodies where they lay, when they were found it would send a message to the rest of Gato's forces.

// \\

Across town the leader of the occupation forces was just starting to get reports of the resistance movement. Gato frowned as he listened to the latest reports, and after this mornings raid had gone so well. Sixty five women would bolster his hold on the red-light districts especially as they were now slaves and didn't require a share of the money.

He'd giggled at the prospect of all that money in his pockets when he'd ordered the move this morning, but now it was no longer funny.

"Sir, another group has failed to report. That's eleven groups in under an hour. At this rate we're going to be in trouble shortly, what should we do?"

"Move the men back to the compound and prepare the defences," he frowned, that sounded much more defensive than he wanted to be at this time, he was the aggressor not the victim, "Hold on that, I say if they want a fight then we change the rules and give them what they want. Send out a town crier to call a meeting of the villagers, tell them they either come to the bridge or we'll start killing whoever ignores the call." He wasn't expecting much in the way of resistance but you never knew, stranger things had happened in the three years he'd been crushing the spirit of the people here in the Land of Waves.

"Yes sir!" the man left to do his employers bidding.

// \\

Sasuke peered over the edge of the roof at the squad passing below, it was becoming the standard the samurai were using since they'd lost so many four man teams, they doubled the size, pity they didn't do anything about the quality. So far none of the genin had even broken a sweat or had to push themselves, of course most of their strategy had involved simple little ambushes. This looked like it might be different since there were enough that they might be surprised by an unknown variable. He snorted at the thought before making a few hand-signs.

'Member 2, member 3, hold, back-up, Member 1 strike,' short simple and sweet until member 3 across the street flashed back.

'Member 3, query, where?' He almost sent back a query himself but chose to look around and see if he could find the pink-haired kunoichi instead, and swore under his breath as he watched her ghosting the patrol. "Damn it Sakura that wasn't part of the plan." The plan had been that he'd take the men down himself while the others watched on suitably impressed with his inborn superiority.

He was seeing a whole new side of Sakura-chan and he wasn't sure he liked it, he'd been much happier with the fan-girl, this new persona she was showing un-nerved him. Never mind the fact she'd been royally pissed since they'd sealed Tsunami and Inari behind a henge'd door so that the mercenaries wouldn't find them and separate them.

She hadn't spoken very much since they left Tazuna's place, she'd been curt and precise. Sakura had also spoken in a tone that said, 'Do not argue, do as I say. I'm angry and you won't like me if I get angrier,' her eyes had spoken volumes about her intentions if they failed to follow that unspoken rule. Neither of them had even thought in the deepest recesses of their minds about the possibility that it might be that time of the month. So far they'd followed her orders explicitly since neither Sasuke or Naruto were prepared to find out what she was willing to do to them if they refused. There was also the fact that after her first plan had gone off flawlessly they'd figured it wasn't broke so it wasn't worth trying to fix it. That was changing with this last group, she hadn't even voiced her intention to attack before she recklessly endangered them all.

He had to concede that she wasn't the only one willing to take risks at the moment either, they'd gotten close enough to overhear the pronouncement that Gato's men were spreading through the village and that was when they'd decided that the business magnate had gone too far and they would stop him no matter the cost.

The two males hadn't really paid attention to what the other academy students studied when they were all together in class, one thing they were sure of was that none of them had picked up a blade larger than a kunai unless they had done so at home. Something that was unlikely in Sakura's case since she was a first generation kunoichi.

That was probably why they were asking themselves where her current proficiency with the wakizashi came from. In normal terms she was as fast as any of the kunoichi in their year group, except for Hinata Hyuga, so that would give her an advantage over the average samurai, but the pink haired kunoichi had just waded into a group of enemy troops without even second guessing her ability.

The blade came clear of its sheath with a near silent hiss and eviscerated the last man in the squad as he spun to meet the attack he'd sensed, a flick of the wrist and the second mans attack was deflected away from her body only to flick again and remove a hand before reversing and taking the mans head off. The next attack was a horizontal slash that would have bisected her body if she hadn't already been moving into a spinning crouch, a muffled crunch was heard as the heel of her shoe met the mans knee even as a swath of pink hair began to fall around her from the near miss. The sword in her hand punched upwards into the samurais chest and lifted him off his feet. The solid kick to his chest lifted him even higher as he flew from her sword tip and into the five remaining men sending three of them sprawling.

Sakura leapt into the air and somersaulting to come down on a hapless soldier who was just rising to his knees, the sword went in just below his shoulder blade and her momentum tore it out of his body again as she rolled back to her feet. A quick exchange of blows sent the sound of swords clashing echoing across the square as the two men who'd remained on their feet surged to the attack. The shorter blade had a large advantage as she could reposition it with much greater speed than the longer katana they were wielding, though that shortness was also a handicap as she couldn't get within their swings. She cast a murderous glare at her two stationary comrades as Naruto launched a kunai into the man nearest him, it wasn't enough to kill the man but it distracted him long enough for Sakura to switch her lead foot and pirouette around his defence driving the wakizashi into his exposed arm pit and out through the opposite shoulder. Ripping the blade out she neatly avoided the spray of blood as she riposted the blade of the second man.

One of the men who'd been knocked over decided to play dead and had that status confirmed as he couldn't defend himself in time as the kunoichi rammed a foot down on his neck producing a sharp crack as it splintered. That left two of the original eight man squad and neither was willing to face her, the first turned and tried to bolt but another advantage of the wakizashi came into play, it was balanced and short enough to be thrown and his back arched as it went in underneath his left shoulder blade killing him instantly as it pierced his heart. The last man didn't even see her draw a kunai from her pouch and throw it at him as he struggled under the weight of two of his dead comrades, the slicing sound as it met his throat and the gurgling sound as he tried to staunch the blood flow were the last sounds to be heard.

Sasuke watched the girl who'd been a fan girl of his for nearly four years with a wary expression on his face, since the expression on hers didn't change as she walked forward to reclaim her weapons. The only word that came to mind to that adequately described the look in her eyes was rabid

"Sakura put the sword down," Sasuke spoke softly, coaxing the kunoichi to at least relinquish the blade before someone important got hurt, such as himself, he still had the ambition to rebuild his clan at some point and he wouldn't be able to do that if he lost his head here, "There's no one else here to hurt." Naruto didn't say a word, he didn't have to or want to just in case she remembered something he'd done to make her angry.

Once there was nothing left to kill Sakura gradually came back to herself and realized what had happened, wiping the blade carefully on the tabard of one of the fallen samurai she placed the blade back in its sheath much to the relief of her friends.

"Good, now we'd better get out of here before those reinforcements arrive," the loud tramping of many feet could be heard coming from somewhere on the other side of the square. With a flick of his wrist Sasuke sent a kunai towards the approaching men and watched in satisfaction when the blade sank into the wall near the corner he suspected the men to appear around shortly. "Naruto, leave a clone. Give them something to look at and take their attention away from looking for traps."

"Kage Bunshin! Alright you, you get to bait some samurai so they fall for the teme's trap," the clone in question grinned as he watched the three man team dash away before turning and watching as a group of about twenty guards came around the corner. The lead figure stopped when he saw a young boy look like he was sneaking away from the bodies of some of the mercenaries they'd sent out earlier.

"Oi you! Stop where you are!"

"Who me? You gotta be kidding fatso! You want me you're gonna have to come get me! No wait a second, how about I come get you?" The clone laughed at the confused expression on the mans face as he tried to process the sheer stupidity it took for a kid to threaten to charge twenty heavily armed men, or at least he would have if there hadn't been a flash of light at his back that quickly expanded to encompass the world.

"Woooah!" the clone exclaimed as he watched the explosion expand outwards and upwards. The men closest to the blast merely disappeared as the explosion literally tore them apart, those furthest from the blast were thrown through the air as the flames washed over them and landed a good forty metres from where they'd started. None of the men were going to prove to be a problem. The clone didn't even have time to react before a stray piece of shrapnel dispersed him and the memories of what had happened hit Naruto like a sledgehammer. The blast had been much bigger than any of the genin had expected from their limited experience with explosive notes.

Naruto wondered if that was just something to do with Kakashi or whether genin as a whole were given lower powered explosive notes, whatever it was he fully intended to find out when they had some time.

Over the next hour they accounted for another three teams, with only the last one giving them any trouble. Naruto had stumbled suddenly and given their position away, but that was alright as Sasuke used another of Kakashi's explosive notes and watched the awesome fireball expand outwards, his team-mates had to literally drag him away as the flame threatened their position.

"Oi, Naruto, what's your malfunction? That's the third time you've flinched like that," Sakura glared at her team-mate, she hadn't commented the other times but this time it had compromised their safety.

"Hey it ain't my fault! Something keeps dispersing my clones!" It was true too, all he knew was there was a sudden scream and then nothing. No kind of warning and no idea what the hell was going on.

// Over the forests of Land of Fire \\

High above the trees a dark speck circled, waiting patiently, enjoying the feel of wind ruffling through its feathers as it soared out of a thermal and began to watch the ground far below.

It didn't have long to wait as a tiny speck of white against the sea of green appeared and moved slowly into position. The hunter folded its wings and plummeted like a stone making tiny adjustments to its flight path. A hundred metres above its target it flared its wings and began to level out, now travelling at close to a hundred miles an hour. Reaching forward with grasping claws it struck the target and allowed the mass of the white bird to slow it down, until it disappeared in a puff of smoke. The startled hawk suddenly found itself less than fifteen metres from the tree tops and descending at eighty miles an hour as it disappeared through the leaves with an undignified squawk. A moment later there was a crunching sound as it met the forest and the forest won.

// Gato's headquarters \\

"Strip them!" came the command as his men moved forward into the sobbing crowd of women, their hands had been tied behind them earlier when they'd first been captured so they couldn't even defend themselves if they wished. The men cut the clothes from their bodies leaving them naked, open to the lust filled eyes of the men who didn't hesitate to touch what they could see. They were left to the tender mercies of the men for almost a quarter of an hour before the leader called a halt to the torment.

"Bring forth one of the prisoners," he waited as one of the elder women were dragged forth, "On you knees!" he ordered, and smirked when the woman gave him a defiant look and refused. The harsh sound of her breath being driven from her lungs as his fist slammed into her stomach was the only sound as she collapsed to her knees in agony.

"This morning you were free, and you took that freedom for granted," he called out, "This afternoon you are not free, you are slaves, my will is your will, my wish is your command. You will heed all orders given to you, or you shall be punished," he reached down and grabbed the woman at his feet by the hair and held her down, "Show them what I mean Ameru, give her four."

The crowd of women watched fearfully as a man, obviously the named Ameru stepped forward and drew a coil of braided leather from a hook on his belt and allowed it to un-coil to the floor. With a flick of his wrist the whip rose into the air, with another it came down with a crack directly in the middle of the woman's back. She let out a shriek as the agony she'd been feeling before went beyond anything she'd ever felt before, she tried to jerk away from the pain but the grip in her hair wouldn't allow her to move, and then she heard the whistling sound as the leather descended again and she tensed as white fire again licked through her body. After the fourth strike she could feel the world around her begin to fade but a sharp jerk on her hair forced her to her feet and she was dragged over to an open door

/ \

Gato watched in satisfaction as the first of his new slaves was pushed into his audience chamber, he smiled when she was told to kneel in the first square drawn on the floor and she hastily did the mans bidding. She never looked up so she didn't see him leaning back into the pillows strewn on the dais he favoured. This day made him a very happy man, it was the culmination of three years of planning, of systematically crushing the spirit of the villagers of the Land of Waves, it was the beginning of a new era. One in which the Elemental countries would have no part, this was his land and he would have more.

From beyond the open doorway there was another crack followed by a stifled scream, and a short moment later another of the women were pushed through the door, she too knelt where told without any hesitation. It'd be a while before the men were finished teaching them the consequences of failure to do as they were told so he sat back and allowed the pleasure of a well planned take over wash through his mind while he sipped a cold drink.

"Sir?" the captain of his guard stepped forward to regain his attention some time later when all the slaves had been processed. Gato straightened up and paid attention to the hundred or so women that were going to fuel his business empire when they were taken to his brothels.

"Some of you think you know my name, you think of me as Gato. Well I'm here to tell you you're wrong, my name has changed, at least where you're concerned. My name is Master….What is my name?" A number of the women looked up and a few of them even murmured 'Master'

"I can't hear you! What is my name?" he yelled out over the cowering women.

"Master." The ragged cry came back.

"Good, remember it, any man who gives you an order goes by this name and you shall call them by it." He stepped down from the dais and strolled in amongst the prone figures, stopping to look at one or another of them. Reaching down suddenly the young girl flinched as his hand caressed the welt on her back from where she'd been whipped.

"In this hand I hold your life, and I tell you your life means nothing to me. You are what ever I tell you, you are," he straightened back up and continued walking, "Your life is what I tell you it is. You own nothing, you are owned. You, how old are you?" he looked down at one of the younger girls who looked back at him with wide green eyes.

"Fifteen," she yelped in pain as Gato reached and pulled her hair to hold her in place as he punched her.

"What was that? Fifteen, what?" he yelled in her face.

"Fifteen Master!" she whimpered as he smiled at her almost benevolently.

"My and you're such a pretty thing too," his fingers caressed the growing bruise under her eye, the terrified girl didn't dare to flinch in case he unleashed more pain on her.

"Sir!"

"What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Sir, the villagers have gathered where you told them."

"Oh good, secure the slaves in the cells. Oh and have this one taken to my private quarters, I'll see to her training myself." His smile widened as he watched the girls widen in shock as understanding blossomed in her mind.

/ \

"Are the men gathered?"

"Yes sir, everyone's in position and waiting for the order," the captain of his personal guard said as they walked out along the bridge to confront the peasants of his land, just a pleasant stroll with a few hundred of his samurai. As he got closer he could see that the bridge, which was eighty feet wide was crammed with people, many times the number of guards he'd brought with him but that would change when the rest of his forces got into position.

"You're probably wondering why I called you here today. You're probably thinking, 'Why all the way out here?' And I have to say the answers simple. I wanted you to see this, this wonderful, marvelous bridge that old man Tazuna built….Oh, I'm sorry, that's right he didn't get to complete it did he? He failed you, and left you to face the consequences."

"At first I thought I'd destroy this structure, and all the hope that was built up with it, but then I thught to myself, 'Why not leave it, leave it as a reminder, a symbol of your failure,' So that's what I'm going to do, I'll leave it so that everyday for the rest of your lives you'll know that there's nothing you can do. I've given you your chance and from now on anyone attempting to leave this island will die."

"Before I continue and outline what life will be like under my command I hope you people will choose to help me with solving a little problem. You see there's a small matter of three genin that are proving to be a thorn in my side, not a big thorn but a thorn nonetheless. Now of course you're asking yourselves why you should help me in this matter," he stopped speaking as six of his men ran forward and grabbed three of the quailing villagers and dragged them back so they were behind Gato, "and the answer is that if you don't then I shall kill these three villagers, and then an hour later I shall kill another three, one for each of the genin, and I'll keep killing each hour until they are handed over. Kill them!" he commanded, the men lifted small daggers and slit the throat of the villager their partner was holding and then gasped as the person they had just killed turned into a cloud of smoke.

Gato's head snapped back to the crowd as it parted and the three he'd been looking for stepped forth.

"I told you it wouldn't work dobe," Sasuke scowled at the blonde.

"Not work? Not work? How can you say that, it was beautiful, did you see the look on their faces? And, and all of his men are here so it did work!"

"No it didn't, this isn't all his men."

"Hey boss! That ship you told me to watch is almost level with us and heading for the far end of the bridge."

"Alright you know what to do," the Naruto's exchanged nods as the clone pulled its jacket aside to show them all that it did indeed know its part of the plan before it leapt over the side of the bridge.

"Was that…."

"Yep, that was all the exploding tags we had," Naruto smirked as the whole bridge shuddered under the backlash of the explosion below. Sasuke rushed over to the side of the bridge and then leapt back in time to save his eyebrows from the fireball that rose from the shattered freighter below, the next time he got to the side of the bridge he watched the bow of the small freighter sink beneath the cold waves of the Western Sea amongst the flotsam that'd been blown from the deck of the ship. There weren't too many bodies down there but then he guessed that those who'd been unlucky enough to be wearing armour had probably already sunk.

"Holy shit!"

"So you ready to give up Gato?"

"Give up? You've got to be joking, I've still got the advantage, I've got over two hundred men at my back, while all you've got is villagers that you'll have to protect."

"Villagers? Didn't you learn anything from those three? Alright guys you can drop the henge," the first few ranks disappeared in smoke as they began to yell for the clones further away to drop the henge, and the samurai were left staring in horror at the mass of shadow clones they faced, "Nope, ain't no villagers here. You know what to do guys," the three pre-teens watched as the orange stream of Naruto's streamed past them as they walked over to Gato and his two body guards.

The host of samurai watched the clones approach and decided that they'd seen enough over half of them had routed by the time the front ranks were engaged and both clones and samurai started to die. A few of the samurai decided to throw themselves on the mercy of the kid by divesting themselves of weapons and surrendering, that was when they found out that Naruto was taking advice from a demon. 'Never leave an enemy behind you, never allow an evil man to live and continue his evil,' a simple ethos but still the men died for all its simplicity. A minute later the disciplined core of Gato's army dissolved swept away in the tide of orange as it washed inland in search of runners.

"Sakura, you take the man on the right, Sasuke you take lefty, Gato's mine," Sasuke turned to him about to protest when his voice dried up when he caught sight of the red glow in Naruto's eyes. Maybe just this once he would listen to the dobe.

Sakura growled as she drew the wakizashi and lunged for the man on the right and twisted the blade down wards to block the first thrust, smirking the man drew his second sword and swung it down on her only to watch stunned as she raised the sword and blocked the blow with the hilt. Tilting her blade further she drove the tip through the mans larynx and twisted it out in a spray of blood.

Sasuke didn't even slow down as he finished the hadn-seals of his attack and allowed the ball of flame to engulf his target, when he landed the ash from his late foe was still falling.

Naruto wasn't going to bother with any weapons, he was going to take great delight in tearing this fat man apart with his bare hands.

"No!"

'No? I'm gonna kill him!'

"Don't, he has something we want,"

'What the hell could he have that I want?' he yelled at the source of his vexation.

"Money," Kyubi said succinctly, "If you kill him then the only people who benefit are the men who're left at his headquarters." Naruto's hands stilled where they were wrapped around the business mans throat.

"You've got one chance to live," he repeated what the fox told him, "How much is you life worth to you?"

"You can't let him live after all he's done!" Sakura yelled at him as she turned from the man she'd just killed.

"I can if he does what I want, other wise it gets messy. I don't remember how long Kakashi told me he could keep someone alive while killing them slowly, but I'm willing to figure it out as we go along," both Sasuke and Sakura stared at him, they hadn't heard Kakashi say anything even remotely like that, and then it struck them what was happening.

"I can pay! I've got lots of money."

"Yeah, we know. So why don't you stop talking and show us? Walk in front, don't try to run, you don't need both your legs to get where we're going." Gato went pale as he understood just what he'd been threatened with.

"How do I know you wont just kill me when you get what you want?"

"I give you my word, and I never go back on my word, that's my nindo!"

// An hour later \\

The last of Gato's men had fallen as they tried to stop the three genin from pushing through the smoldering gates of the compound.

"Lead the way, and don't try anything funny, we've already done a lot of killing so far today and I've got no problem continuing," Naruto snarled.

"Okay, okay, it's this way," Gato almost ran as he led them through wide hallways and down stairs, "Here, it's in here." Pushing the door open he strode into his private quarters. Unfortunately he'd forgotten the young girl he'd ordered to be brought to his room, she was chained to the foot of his bed still unclothed and bent so that they could see the condition of her back.

Naruto had to use chakra to adhere his feet to the ground when he grabbed Sakura as she sailed past him sword drawn.

"Sakura! Stand down…..I promised we wouldn't kill him," he grunted as she shifted her weight, "Besides I need you to find the other women and free them."

"But I…"

"I'll take care of it, now go and do as your told," Sasuke assured her quietly, that was all it took for Sakura to regain control, her Sasuke promised to take care of it. She moved towards the door, "Hey Sakura?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful. Oh and when you find them bring them to that large hall we saw."

"Sure," Sakura turned for the door and disappeared.

"You are one lucky bastard," Naruto said conversationally, though he didn't explain what he meant, "Now how about showing me where this money is."

Gato walked over to a painting and pushed it aside revealing a wall safe, "It's in there."

"Open it," Sasuke watched impassively as the fat man fumbled the combination three times, "Do it right or we find out how many fingers you actually need to twirl that tumbler," the next attempt to open te safe resulted in a click and the door swung open to reveal piles of Ryo notes.

"Nice," Naruto breathed as he picked up a wad of money and riffled it through his fingers, "What do you reckon Sasuke?"

"I'd say about twenty million give or take."

"I'll take your word for it, the question is, is it enough to spare his life?"

"I don't think so, he's caused a lot of pain and suffering."

"Yeah, you know when you're right, you're right. So how about it Gato, old buddy old pal?"

"But I don't have anymore money here," Gato began to sweat as he found himself gazing into a pair of intense blue eyes.

"You know my friend, I'd really like to believe you. I really would, but you see my friend here has an interesting bloodline. You know what they are don't you? Great, well you see Sasuke here is one of the Uchiha's, probably doesn't mean anything to you since you're not from Konoha, but they can tell when someone is lying to them, amongst other things. Go on Sasuke show him that neat thing you do with your eyes, go on." Naruto nattered on like an over-enthusiastic idiot and Gato could feel himself relaxing a little, he could tell the pre-teen was bluffing.

"Well if you insist Naruto, I really don't like to use it like this but…." Gato looked up in time to see the Uchiha's eyes turn from solid black to red with black tomoes circling the pupil, and felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.

"See, see isn't that just so cool? Now why don't you answer that question my friend? You are my friend aren't you? You wouldn't lie to a friend now would you? Because that wouldn't be a very friendly thing to do now would it?" Gato was shaking his heads for all he was worth.

"Answer my question. Is there another safe you use to store large amounts of money in?" Sasuke allowed his voice to deepen as he spoke and his eyes began to spin as he fed them more chakra.

"No," Gato stammered as he spoke but tried to sound like he meant it.

"So, he told the truth didn't he Sasuke?" he paused to let Sasuke speak, "Please tell me he didn't lie to me."

"I can't do that Naruto, he lied to us."

"Noooo, now I'll have to do something unfriendly to him to balance things out again. Now what is it those Yakuza types do when they lose honour? Oh yeah that's right," Naruto flicked his wrist and the kunai flew straight and true, taking off one of Gato's fingers. "There we're all friends again now aren't we Gato? So when he asks you a question the next time you know what will happen. I really don't want to but bonds of friendship are like that aren't they?" Naruto looked truly forlorn as he spoke to the man now grasping his hand as he tried to staunch the blood flow from his severed finger as he sobbed in pain, he hadn't been subjected to any kind of pain during his life which is why he had no appreciation for other peoples suffering. Now he was playing catch up as it were and he wasn't enjoying the sensation.

"Now shall we try that again? We know you're a multi-billionaire, we know you're not legit and as such wouldn't use the banks in any of the Elemental countries. We know you wouldn't trust anyone else to keep your money safe. Therefore the money must be here somewhere. Now believe me, even if you don't tell us we'll find it, it'll just take more time and make us angry. You don't want to make us angry, we've got a kunoichi who's just itching to use you for target practice. Which reminds me," Sasuke moved over to one of the wardrobes and pulled it open to reveal lots of suits which weren't very useful, the kimono at the far end on the other hand would do until the girl could find some more clothes.

"Here put this on," he said to the girl who was no longer cowering expecting horrible things to happen to her at any moment. She had just watched as someone took the fat pig down a peg or three and enjoyed seeing it immensely, which was why she could only point as Gato slipped into a hidden passage while the two genin were busy with different things, both thinking the other was watching the man. A thrown Kunai slid through the gap just in time to stop the doors from closing fully and engaging the locking mechanism.

"Shit, What the hell were you doing dobe. You were supposed to be watching him," he gave a sharp grunt as he tried to pull the leaves apart but the heavy metal doors refused to budge. "Are you listening to me Naruto?" He turned to find out what was going on with the teams resident idiot and promptly wished he hadn't, he'd felt this chakra on several occasions and found the sheer intensity of the energy to be unsettling.

"**Move!**" Naruto's eyes had gone that strange red colour again, but that wasn't all, the chakra was leaking from his body in waves so potent that loose items of clothing that had been strewn on the floor in his search for suitable clothing was being pushed aside and even starting to singe due to the heat being released. Whatever was happening Sasuke wasn't willing to get in the way as aura formed two 'arms' that sprang forward and wedged themselves into the small crevice. He watched stunned as Naruto flexed his shoulders and with a shriek of protesting metal the doors gave out and smashed through a wall before coming to a stop at a crazy angle. Even before the doors had stopped moving, almost before they started moving the blonde was in motion through the gap he'd created.

The last Uchiha followed his team mate carefully as he pondered the questions that flooded his mind as he tried to figure out just what had happened. Whatever it was that certainly hadn't been the dobe he'd always known from the academy, that was something or someone else and he needed to know just what they were dealing with. They were a long way from home and their jounin sensei wasn't around to protect them. Past the doors he found a set of steps heading even further underground, poorly lit as they were he headed down them figuring that after the team 7 had had that nothing as mundane as a set of stairs would do him in, so he headed down them as fast as he could. About thirty metres down the stairs ended in a long corridor that was even worse lit than the stairs had been. For the first time he got a clear look at the aura around Naruto that had been so vague in a full lit room, here he could see the thing clearly. It appeared nothing like you'd expect, it looked almost fox-like, in a rabid sort of abstract way. Whatever it truly was it had the business man pinned against one of the walls and was about to smear him.

"Naruto! Don't…." he wasn't even sure why he was trying to stop the blonde he just knew it was important that he didn't kill the man in cold blood like this.

Naruto turned to face the insignificant bug that dared to question its right to kill this slimebag. One glance though was all it took for his team-mates fear to penetrate the haze of rage that had descended when Gato tried to leave like that, the aura that had enveloped him faded as fast as it had appeared and the nerveless body of the businessman slid to the floor as he watched the monster who'd caught him.

"You weren't leaving were you Gato?" Naruto's voice sounded hoarse as he spoke with his normal voice. Looking around for the first time he saw the doors that led off of the corridor and wondered what they were all about, "So where's that money you promised me?"

Gato hadn't managed a response to either of the questions other than to point slightly to his left where the two ninja could see several bags, a backpack and two silver slim-line briefcases.

"Well that looks promising," Naruto murmured before he whirled at the soft scuff of a shoe on the stone steps behind them. Looking up he found Sakura panting a little as she approached, "Heya Sakura-chan, what's up?"

"I felt a massive chakra spike over this way, but it's gone now."

"Er, yeah that was me," he admitted sheepishly while he scratched the bacdk of his neck.

"Oh," Sakura was surprised by that admission, she'd known that the blonde had large chakra reserves but she hadn't thought they were that large. It did go a long way to explaining his stamina though so she was willing to let it go for the moment, but only for the moment as she had a number of questions she wanted answers to. By the look of him Sasuke had a similar list but the situation stopped him from asking them as well.

"So what do we do now?" Sasuke asked cautiously.

"Did you find the women he took Sakura?"

"Yeah they're in the main hall."

"Great, then that's where we're going next. Come on Gato, lead the way," Naruto leaned down and hefted both of the briefcases while Sasuke grabbed the back-pack and swung it on. When they got to Gato's bedroom no one was surprised that the girl Sasuke released was gone and no one blamed her either. A five minute walk later and Sasuke shoved the fat man through the door, where the murmuring sounds of hushed conversation died a sudden death.

"Hey Sakura?"

"Yes Naruto?"

"Can I borrow your sword for a moment, I'd do this with my kunai but having a longer blade will make it easier."

"Er, sure," she was a little hesitant to let the blade out of her hand but relinquished it nonetheless. She'd never had a blade like it and she had enjoyed wielding it, even the sound the blade made as Naruto drew it was pleasant in her mind. Gato never suspected a thing as he hesitantly approached the women his men had brought in earlier, it was one thing to be cruel and nasty when they were tied up and helpless, but it was something else when those same people were free and looked like they'd enjoy nothing more than tearing him apart, slowly.

His eyes never leaving the crowd he waited for the young genin to enter the room and protect his life like they said they would. That's why it was such a surprise when the blade of Sakura's sword sliced through his Achilles tendons, dropping him to his knees as he yelled in pain. Naruto moved in front of him as he flicked the small smear of blood off of the blade and looked down at the man who'd caused this land so much pain, his cold blue eyes penetrating in their intensity and hatred.

"But why? You said you wouldn't kill me….."

"You should really listen to what people say. For a business man you're pretty stupid. I said I wouldn't kill you," Gato felt a little hope at that, it died a quick death as Naruto continued, "I didn't say anything about maiming, wounding or torturing you. I didn't say I'd protect you from others who wanted to kill you. I didn't say that I wouldn't give those people some weapons so they could do so. What about you guys? You willing to donate some weapons so that these nice ladies can pay Gato back." Sasuke gave a chilling grin as he nodded slowly, he appreciated the macabre humour of Naruto's solution. Sakura nodded as well, feeling that justice would be served by it, inner Sakura wasn't anywhere near as reticent as she yelled, "Hell yeah! Shannaro!"

The crowd had perked up at the suggestion that they'd be able to get some of their own back on the man. Team 7 moved away from Gato and began to drop weapons on the ground, though none of them left all of their tools, and Sakura wasn't leaving the wakizashi she'd found, not for anything.

"You can't leave me here! They'll kill me!"

"Yeah, funny that, seems you've been a very bad boy. Bad boys need to be punished and it should always fit the crime. Now if you'd freed us from our oath we could have made it quick and clean, but you didn't so we're going to go now and let these ladies have a long talk with you about your evil ways."

"I take it back, you don't have to keep to that oath," Gato said his eyes pleading.

"Oh no, I just wouldn't feel right about depriving them of justice like that. You know what though, if it were my place I'd start by beating him, then move on to whips if you can find them. Keep it nice and slow before I used knives on him." Sakura said, she'd seen how they'd been kept, and what had been done to them by the guards.

"Please!"

"Let's go Team 7, we've got other things to do," Sasuke led the way from the room leaving the crime lord to the tender mercies of his own victims.

// Tsunami's house \\

Sakura stepped back from the door as she dispelled the genjutsu they'd anchored to the room, knocking she opened it slowly to reveal mother and child blinking in the renewed light.

"It's over Tsunami, there aren't anymore people belonging to Gato's organization left. Or if there are it's only a couple," Sakura held out her hand to help the woman to her feet and suddenly found herself in a crushing hug.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she sobbed as she held on to the pinkette as tightly as she could. Inari watched wide eyed, he'd felt a massive sense of betrayal when the bad men had killed his grand-father and Team 7 hadn't kept their promise to protect him but that had changed now. He was still sad at the loss but he knew that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that sometimes justice isn't in time, but karma always gets its man in the end.

"You're welcome Tsunami, I'm just so sorry we couldn't save Tazuna."

"Don't be, please. We knew, we knew he wouldn't live through this. It was always just a matter of time before Gato sent men after him. It was just that when they got so close to the end of the bridge, they hoped they could do it, finish it that is." The tears that had refused to fall all day began to roll down her cheeks as she began sobbing again, Inari moved closer and clung to his mothers leg.

"Well that's all we wanted to tell you, so we'll be going. We've got to find somewhere to stay the night."

"Don't you dare move! You're staying right here, for as long as you like. You saved our country and I for one am happy to have you here!" Tsunami said fiercely, Inari echoed the sentiment with a definite nod.

"Um, thanks," just those simple words didn't seem adequate to express what Sakura was feeling but she was immensely grateful to the older woman. "Um is there any chance we could get cleaned up?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, of course. I'll just put the water heater on. While I'm gone if you're hungry help yourself to whatever you like." Tsunami rushed from the room trailing Inari who decided to help.

"So what now?"

"Food!" Naruto declared as he dragged his team into the kitchen, neither of them resisted too hard as they'd just realized that it had been eight hours or more since they'd last eaten. It took half an hour before Naruto finished eating and patted his stomach contentedly.

"Kami you're such a pig Naruto," Sakura yelled, her nose had been twitching for a couple of minutes now and she found that they all smelled really ripe, they'd never have been able to sneak up on an academy student the way they smelled, "Ergh, oh we smell so bad! That's it, you guys are going in the bath first," it was true that the boys smelled the worst, they'd been in the thick of most of the fighting early on and they'd all been covered in their share of blood and other bodily fluids throughout the day and now they smelled like a butchers shop, a very badly run butchers shop.

"Hey that's not fair, you smell too!" Naruto said, he'd had to deal with it all day since his sense of smell had been enhanced by his new status of a Hanyou. Sakura couldn't resist clipping the boy around the ear for pointing out that she smelled, after all if she didn't correct him how was he ever supposed to learn that it's not polite to point such things out to a woman.

"Yes, but I intend to soak afterwards and I don't want to be rushed because you need a bath too."

"Oh," Naruto calmed down, 'Girls are really strange," he thought as he rubbed his ear absently, he wasn't the first male to think so and he definitely wouldn't be the last.

Having said everything they felt they felt they could for the moment they sat badck and watched each other, hiding their inner thoughts. Naruto got the feeling that the others were both watching him very carefully. That was when the fourth unofficial member of Team 7 decided to speak up.

"**Looks like they're suspicious," **Kyubi said in a snide voice.

'Yeah, well I didn't do a real good job of hiding you did I?'

"**So what are you going to tell them?**"

'I dunno…' he admitted, he'd never thought about this kind of scenario, he'd hoped perhaps naively that he could live his entire life without acknowledging the fact that he was a demon vessel.

"**You'll have to tell them something. You know the Uchiha boy is going to demand answers and he wont take no for an answer.**"

'Yeah, I kind of figured that. I suppose I'll have to tell them the truth,' Naruto felt Sasuke's attention sharpen as his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"**I don't think that'd be very wise kit, but if you wish it you'll have to live with the repercussions.**"

'I know, I didn't mean I'd tell them everything, just about the villages big secret, I'll have to make sure they know its got to remain a secret too."

"**It's a better plan than telling them everything I suppose, and now that you know what you're going to tell them I'd suggest you answer the pink furred vixen before she hits you again.**"

"Huh?"

"I said, Tsunami said the bath is ready. Sasuke's already gone ahead so you'd better catch up," Sakura folded her arms across her chest as she watched him scramble for the door.

"See ya Sakura!" Naruto wasn't stupid enough to get between a kunoichi and a bath when she wanted it. When he finally caught up with Sasuke the other boy was nearly finished washing himself and was about to head for the hot-tub to soak a little.

"Hurry up dobe or I'll make sure Sakura knows to make your life a living hell."

"Already there," Naruto murmured quietly, though obviously not quietly enough if Sasuke's raised eyebrow was any indication, "Uh, I'll explain in a while okay?"

"Hn, whatever. Just hurry up." He gave a little hiss of appreciation as he sank into the steaming water. Sasuke eyed Naruto as he divested himself of his orange jump-suit, or to be more accurate he eyed the hated outfit and planned to burn it along with his own since it was filled with dried blood. He was so focused on the eminent demise of their clothes that he missed the exuberant blondes entrance to the bath, he didn't miss the wave of hot water that smacked him in the face and slopped over the rim of the bath.

"Damn it Naruto, the water's supposed to stay in the bath!"

"Oops, sorry," Naruto wiggled his backside as he sat down gingerly, he wasn't used to proper baths like this since he'd only ever had access to a shower and the hot water was always a bit iffy. Meaning 'if he' was in the shower then it was none existent, hot water seemed to be something that only ever happened to other people. The blonde let out a groan as he settled fully and felt the heat seep into his aching muscles, "Oh, that feels good!" as his head leant back against the wooden tub and he closed his eyes for a couple of minutes. Until he heard the outer door open slowly which was strange since Sasuke was on the opposite side of the tub still. Naruto opened an eye and watched in stunned disbelief as a yukata clad Sakura walked into the wash area.

"Sakura-chan! What are you doing? We're still in here you know?" Naruto asked frantically, scared in case she had missed their presence. He'd noted that it didn't matter what was happening between the team-mates, but when something went wrong it was always his fault.

"I know, I just cant wait anymore," the boys watched as she turned her back and sat down on one of the wash stools, opening the light weight robe she allowed it to slip from her body and to the floor leaving two buy-eyed boys staring at her naked back as she began to scrub her body. Neither boy could take his eyes from her slender form as when she finished she lifted a pale of water over her head and allowed it to sluice the soap suds from her body leaving her skin glistening damply. Neither boy was able to stop their bodies reaction to the sensual sight of the girl as she let her hair down and began to wash the long silky strands carefully combing her fingers through the wet hair as she massaged her scalp with a slight moan of pleasure that had a distinct effect on both Sasuke and Naruto. A second bucket of water and Sakura had finished washing, leaning forward to retrieve her yukata drew their eyes to the swell of her hips and as the wet fabric slid over her body both boys realized that the flimsy materiel was going to do nothing to hide her body from them especially when she turned around and headed for the bath.

Sakura knew the effect she was having and kept the smile on her face hidden as she entered the water with a sigh, "Oh Kami that feels sooooo good," she managed to hide a wicked grin when she noted that she'd had a definitely good reaction from her Sasuke, not even the towel he'd hastily placed in his lap could hide that fact. Unfortunately Naruto seemed to have had the same reaction. "Damn it Naruto, you'd better not be having naughty thoughts about me! Only Sasuke-kun can do that," she looked at the boy in question and smiled at Sasuke for a moment before she decided to get serious and get down to the real reason she'd decided to join the two boys in their bath.

"Alright, now that we've got your hormones out of the way. Oh grow up Naruto. We've got more important things to discuss."

"Such as Sakura?"

"There's the matter of what we do with all that money we took?"

"That's easy, we give it to the Hokage," Naruto asserted quietly.

"Why?" Sasuke asked.

"Well, the way I figure it, the people here will need help to rebuild and the Hokage is the best person I can think of to help them. We can't leave this much money here, the villages have no one to protect them from bandits."

"Okay I can see what you mean, actually that's a good idea."

"You don't have to act so surprised about it teme!"

"He's not the only one Naruto, just what's going on here? You weren't this smart in the academy."

"Yes I was, you just didn't appreciate my kind of smart. You think all those pranks just happened without any planning? You think I evaded all those people chasing me without some kind of skill? And you call me dumb?"

"Naruto!" Sakura seethed, 'No one calls me dumb and gets away with it! Shannaro!' She was about to reach over and dunk him when Sasuke broke into her thoughts.

"He has a point Sakura. Okay I'm willing to concede you aren't as stupid as I've always thought you were. That leads us to another issue though. Care to explain what's with you chakra?"

"Um," Naruto paused, of course he didn't really want to explain but knew that he didn't have a real choice, these were his team-mates and Kakashi-sensei had been right, they had the right to know about him, "Not really, but I'll tell ya. Just let me tell you without any interruptions okay?"

Sakura nodded slightly as Sasuke grunted his normal assent.

"Hn."

"Not good enough, I want your word or I don't talk at all. This is too important to me. No interruptions, okay?"

"Okay Naruto, I won't interrupt you," Sakura looked into the depths of his blue eyes and caught a flash of gratitude from the blonde.

"I give you my word as an Uchiha," Sasuke sat back against the wooden tub and closed his eyes prepared to listen to whatever Naruto had to say.

"Right, thanks guys. What I'm about to tell you is an S-classed village secret, you understand what that means?" he waited for a nod of assent from each of them and frowned at Sakura's puzzled expression. "It means that if you talk about this to anyone other than each other and me then you're committing treason. The only people allowed to talk about this to who ever they choose are myself and the Hokage. This secret carries the death penalty for revealing it to someone of our generation so…So just don't okay?"

By this time he had their rapt attention, that was some opening statement he'd made. What could he possibly know that was that important?

"This all starts with my birthday," he paused for a second, "Which you don't know, which is surprising because the whole village celebrates it every year with a big festival, or at least they have for the last eleven years," it'd be another couple of months before they celebrated it again, "It was a very good day for Konoha, a not so good day for me." He could tell that their sense of puzzlement was growing as they couldn't figure out where this was going, they knew that the Yondaime Hokage had killed the demon fox nearly twelve years ago, so why did Naruto bring it up now?

"Everyone was told that the Fourth killed the demon that attacked that day. But it was a lie. One that was never meant to be revealed. Most of the adults in the village know about it though, they just can't speak of it," he watched as a suspicion arose in the eyes of his team-mates, "He couldn't kill it, but he could seal it away. The old man explained it to me a couple of months ago. No one can kill a being that is solid energy, you can't destroy energy. You can only change the energy from one form into another, or store the energy. With the weaker tailed beasts they could trap them in almost anything, Suna supposedly has a demon possessed priests soul trapped in a kettle. For the stronger demons though it takes a special kind of vessel. That's where I come in," Naruto allowed a little of his chakra to flow into the seal on his stomach thus revealing it to his team-mates for the first time, "I was the only vessel suitable to contain something as powerful as Kyubi. Not because I'm special or anything but because my chakra pathways were still forming and thus flexible enough to adapt to the extra power. In fact if I'd been a few hours younger or a few hours older the Hokage admitted that the process would have killed me and the demon would have been free again."

Sasuke and Sakura shuddered at that thought, they'd been taken, along with the rest of an academy class to see the battlefield for themselves, there were still massive scars in the forest, scorched ground where nothing would ever grow. The damage had been horrific and that was after eight years of villagers trying to restore the area to its former state.

"So you're the Kyubi?" Sakura said fearfully as she pressed against Sasuke, a bittersweet moment for her to be sure.

"No! I'm not the damn fox okay? I'm the prison that holds it!"

"But that chakra," Sasuke trailed off as he watched the expression on Naruto's face change. He'd only seen him genuinely angry several times in the time he'd known the boy, most of them had been today. Most times he looked like he was trying to be angry he just came across as petulant, this time was different, it might have been the dull red glow that lurked in the depths of his blue eyes.

"Yeah, that chakra! It's Kyubi's alright? It happens when I get angry, or when I really need it so that I can survive a bad situation. I can steal his power, or at least a little of it for a while, though if I take too much it gets real bad."

"So that's why you got chakra poisoning," Sakura looked at him carefully to judge his response.

"Yeah, I kind of used way too much of his chakra and that's why I collapsed instead of kicking Zabuza's ass." He glared at Sasuke when he heard the boy snort, "Don't laugh Sasuke, that chakra makes me a lot faster and stronger than I normally am. After you collapsed in that ice dome, I got angry enough to take out Haku with one blow."

"One?"

"Yeah, I kind of went ballistic when I thought he'd killed you, he didn't even see me coming until it was almost too late to react, he tried to escape to another mirror and I punched him straight through his own mirror, tore down half the dome with the chakra I released as well."

"Y-you did that because you thought he'd killed me?"

"Course I did! Baka, you're my team-mate, I'd kill for you, and I'd kill for Sakura. You're the only real family I've ever had, even though I know you guys don't feel that way. I've got some other precious people, but I can count the people I count as friends but I'd only need one hand to count them, and only Team 7 and the Hokage are like my family."

"I never knew Naruto," Sakura was reeling a little from the revelations. She'd never thought about how it would feel to be alone like that. She'd always had her family, no matter how much they annoyed her now and again. Even Sasuke had known his family for most of his life before Itachi had decimated them leaving only his little brother alive.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't like I wanted to run around yelling, 'woe is me! My life's shit,'" Sakura had the grace to blush at that, she'd never thought he was putting up a façade to hide his true self from being rejected and she'd gone and made his life worse, she could have been nicer to him for all those years, "Ah don't sweat it, it's not like anyone else ever guessed either. Um, if you guys don't mind I'm kind of tired so I'm gonna go to bed now." Wrapping the towel firmly around himself as he rose from the water he exited the bathroom with what dignity he could muster, he'd dry himself and get changed when he got to the room he was sharing with Sasuke.

Back in the bathroom Sakura was on the verge of hyperventilating as she considered the situation. 'I'm in a bath, nearly naked with Sasuke! Oh my god!'

Sasuke sitting opposite her watched as a blush spread down her face and down her neck, for a second he wondered how low that blush went and then blushed himself. His next thought was, 'If she starts squealing like a fan-girl I'm so out of here.'

// Later that night some six hundred miles away \\

Sarutobi, the Third Hokage of Konoha was snoozing lightly, um, reading scrolls intently by the light of a pedestal lamp when he was startled by the sound of beating wings in the room. Looking around quickly he spotted a white bird settle down on his desk and glare at him with a red gimlet stare.

"Well my aren't you an ugly fellow. You know you're a long way from home aren't you?"

"Heh, Sakura-chan said nearly the same thing old man. Besides I'm not as far from home as you think," the bird in question opened its beak as it laughed at the shocked expression on the Hokage's face.

"Naruto?"

"Yep it's me! Well a clone anyway," the seagull added sheepishly.

"So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit too. I hope Kakashi didn't ask you to do this?"

"Um, no Kakashi-sensei doesn't know about this," Naruto's clone trailed off uncertainly as it tried to figure out how to continue, it might be an exact copy of Naruto's mind but it couldn't do anything the original couldn't either.

"I see I'm going to have to have words with you sensei when I see him," Sarutobi said sternly.

"Not unless you hold a séance you won't," the seagull used a wing to cover its beak as it heard what it'd just said, though the Hokage didn't seem to react as he read between the lines.

"Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning and tell me what has happened?" All in all it took the clone nearly an hour to re-tell the tale of their trip to the Land of Waves, Sarutobi kept interrupting to ask for clarification of certain points or to get more information when Naruto attempted to gloss over certain facts. By the time the clone finished there were a number of other seagulls sitting on the Hokage's desk looking at the old man in an unnerving way.

"I see…..It's a lucky thing Kakashi isn't around to answer to me for this."

"But sensei…."

"Should never have continued such a mission once he knew the client had lied about the conditions to expect. He should have at the very least sent messengers requesting back-up. Knowing all that you've told me, I would have been happy to talk terms with Tazuna after helping the Land of Waves back on its feet."

"But it's not Kakashi's fault! We all wanted to continue, he left it up to me and Sasuke."

"Exactly, he was a veteran of the last shinobi war, he fought with the Yondaime against the Kyubi, he's an experienced jounin and one time ANBU captain who allowed his hubris to draw you and your team into an extremely dangerous situation. He should have known better," he pinched the bridge of his nose as his frustration threatened to overwhelm him, "These are my instructions, you are to hide for as long as you can, don't engage the enemy. I will dispatch two teams of ANBU immediately, they should arrive in roughly twelve hours, I will also send a team of tactical engineers to help finish the bridge once this Gato fellow has been neutralized. Now just sit tight and wait for help. Oh I hope you haven't done anything rash in the meantime. As soon as your relief arrives you are to make your way back to Konaha at your best speed. Now if you'd be so kind as to relay that to the original."

"Yeah we'd better get going, it's a long way back," the bird made to flap its wings and take off when Sarutobi interrupted.

"You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?" the bird asked a little irritated that it'd been stopped from flying away.

"Well everything I just told you will be transmitted to Naruto the moment you disperse. Didn't you read that part of the forbidden scroll?"

"Nope, must of missed that," it's very hard for a bird to appear sheepish but somehow the seagull managed it nonetheless before it 'poofed' out of existence.

"What about us?" the other twelve clones asked.

"Well the more of you that disperse in one hit the more intense the memory will be." A moment later the office was filled with a rapidly dissipating smoke from the clones. Sarutobi sighed as he called for his ANBU guard to get the ball rolling. It was going to be a very long night now that he was wide awake, but at least he had a relief mission to organize to occupy his time.

/ To be continued? \

Authors notes:- Okay that was a little longer than the other chapters hence the delay. I also tried to make the fight scenes as good as I could, don't know if it succeeded, perhaps you'll tell me in your reviews.

**Yep that's right, I expect some reviews from you guys to help me figure out if I'm doing things right.**


	4. Chapter 4

One fine day

Chapter 4

**Disclaimer : I would have written one only a black cat crossed my path, and I had to battle a mob of bandit grannies who were attacking Konoha's east wall.**

**Liar!!!!**

**Oh by the way I have a new story up called "The littlest tree snake" if you like this story then I'm pretty sure you'll like the new one.**

Authors Notes:- Just a few points on what I believe.

Did I mention that this is M rated? That means that there are many adult concepts used in my fic, and I'm not embarrassed to use them, I figure if you're easily offended that you'll either stop reading my fic or grow a thicker skin. Having said that, I have to admit I don't believe in the rating system, I think it's pointless, totally useless and unnecessary. I mean what are we protecting the kids from? All we do is leave them unprepared to deal with the real world when they are shoved out into it after they leave school, then we wonder why the number of Emo teens is increasing, not to mention the suicide rate as kids have their illusions ripped away and have to deal with the real world without the tools to do so.

First Sasuke bashing – it's not going to happen in this fic. Put simply I don't think Sasuke was that bad before the second chunin test where he got the curse seal from Orochimaru. Not that he wasn't an arrogant prick, but having a whole village telling you everyday how great you are will do that. I like to think that after the LoW arc in canon that Sasuke had a little respect for his team, and he seemed more normal and getting better as time went on. It seemed getting out of the village for a while was all he needed to begin teaching him how to be a human again.

Second 'The ninja world' - I think that a world shaped by ninja would be a harsher place than what Kishimoto depicts in canon. I think, a place with bands of roving bandits, all powerful feudal lords and a shinobi force that assassinates, suborns or subjugate each other would be a little darker than it seems in the manga. Rape, robbery and murder would be common, especially with common thugs like Gato's supposed 'Samurai' around. Not that I'm into graphically describing these acts.

Third 'Sakura' – She's a kunoichi, duh, so her training was a little different to the guys. They're taught to use their womanly wiles to get what they want, be it information or an advantage in battle. They're taught that there are many ways to a mans heart. The old adage about 'the quickest way to a man's heart being through his stomach' is only true if you can't get through the man's ribcage. Never forget that women are some of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, trust me, anyone who can lead you around by your short, and curlys and make you smile while doing it is dangerous. Lol.

Alright I'll get off my soap-box, at least until I think of something else to bitch about. I'm like that, it's not out of spite but from my supposed God given right to have my own opinion and express it any which way I please. It's called 'Freedom of speech' and it's something the world seems to have forgotten with all the 'Political correctness' we're supposed to exercise everyday. Ooops, I'm really getting down this time.

**Reviews, they're your fanfiction site given right to tell me what you think of my fic, so please exercise your right to do so. The more of you who do the better I can make this.**

Pairings, um, I thought it'd be clear by now who Naruto would be with, and who Sasuke will be with. No other pairings are set but I'll decide who's with who when I get to it, if they're with anyone

/ Land of Waves \

Naruto bolted upright on his futon as the memories of his dispersing clones slammed into him with all the subtlety of a freight train, and a headache to suit. Flopping back down he rested his head on the pillow as he thought about what he'd just been told, it was like he'd been in front of the Hokage and spoken directly to him.

He didn't know what he felt about the situation, on one hand they'd be getting the help they needed, and on the other they didn't need it anymore. They'd dealt with the problem already. A contingent of village elders had turned up just before they'd settled properly for the night and thanked them for the aid they'd rendered. It'd been suggested that there be a celebratory feast, but the three genin had been much too tired by their day to attend, and the villages stores had been much too depleted in any case, if they planned to make it through the next few months they'd need to carefully ration what they had left.

None of that really concerned Naruto though, he was much more occupied with the Hokage's parting shot about shadow clones, "Did that mean what I think it did?"

"**Of course it did, you don't think that old fox would say something like that to you if it wasn't true. Besides the fact that you know there are two units of ANBU on their way should have been proof enough.**"

'You again?'

"**As observant as ever I see,**" came the fox's snide retort.

'Why do you keep talking to me? It's not like you've done much of it before.'

"**To put it as simply as I can, because I know you, you're more my kind of people than you used to be.**"

'And who's fault is that?'

"**That would be yours,**" in an amused tone. Naruto shifted on the soft mattress grumpily.

'Har, har, you're so funny,' "Not," he added aloud.

"Hn?" The sudden sound startled Naruto for a moment until he realized that it was just Sasuke waking up a little.

"Hey Sasuke," deciding that it was more important to get the news off his chest than to leave the Uchiha to sleep.

"This had better be important Naruto," Sasuke said shortly, he'd been having such a nice dream, though he couldn't remember all the details he did remember a certain shade of pink that had him blushing in the dark, especially as the memories of what happened in the bath crashed back into his conscious mind.

"Yeah, I think so, you can always catch up on your beauty sleep later. I just thought you might think it was important that my clones made it to the Hokage and he's sending two ANBU teams to back us up," Naruto said smugly as he heard Sasuke sit up suddenly.

"What!"

"Shhhh! Are you trying to wake Sakura up?" Naruto made shushing gestures as he panicked at the thought of waking the kunoichi.

"Hn, she really should hear this too."

"Fine, you go wake her then," Naruto relented only to watch his rival settle back down quickly, "Hah, didn't think so."

"So your clones made it all the way to Konoha?" Sasuke was quick to move on now that he'd been embarrassed.

"Er, well thirteen did," Naruto admitted.

"Only thirteen? What happened to the rest of them?"

"Um, let's see, there was the one that spotted Zabuza, he ran into a cliff on purpose so I'd know about him leaving. Damn that hurt. Then there was the one that decided to watch and make sure Zabuza really left, so it decided to swim around and wait like we saw that seagull do. I don't know what went wrong but it sank like a stone, last thing I saw was a stream of bubbles. Er, I lost seven to inattention."

"How does inattention disperse busnshin?"

"Um, flying and inattention don't mix apparently, you tend to run into things like trees, hills, the ground, you get the idea? I lost four at the cliffs on the other side of the sea, from what I can tell they felt themselves suddenly being lifted and panicked, they dispersed before they hit the cliff. After that I lost five to acrobatic flying. Did you know it's impossible for a seagull to do an inverse loop?"

"No! Really?" Sasuke asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, shocked me too, and I found out the ground hurts just as much as cliffs do. Like I said, thirteen made it, but I don't know about the others." Naruto winced as he felt another of his clones disperse.

"What?"

"Did I ever tell ya I hate cats?"

"Er, yeah," Sasuke remembered their forays into pet retrieval, the Daimyo's cat was an evil little bugger.

"Well now I hate them more! When we get back to the village I'm gonna learn medical jutsu so I can hunt Tora down and find out if its true that there's more than one way to skin a cat."

"I take it he just dispersed one of your clones? How'd you know it was Tora? It's gotta be pretty dark in Konoha at the moment."

"Red ribbon," Naruto said succinctly.

"Oh. Well if that's everything dobe I'd like to get some sleep before tomorrow comes?"

"Yeah sure," Naruto allowed gravity to do its thing as he slumped back onto his pillow and sighed. Across the room he could hear Sasuke shifting around as he tried to find a comfortable sleeping position. He would have liked to do the same thing but he was just too wired to sleep at the moment, things kept flitting through his mind, such as, 'What would have happened if I'd done that, then?' or 'Did I forget something?' It took fifteen minutes, in which he heard light snoring coming from the other futon before he finally decided what it was that they'd all missed.

"Hey Sasuke?" he heard a groan from the other bed and swore he heard something about a 'Dull rusty spoon.'

"Do I have to kill you dobe to get some damn sleep?"

"Er no, I just had a thought," Naruto said nervously.

"Oh good, I'll make sure to write it in my diary so I can ask Hokage to declare it a national holiday for you," Sasuke growled.

"Um, heh, heh. So did you want to hear about my thought or what?"

"Are you going to let me sleep if I say yes?"

"Er, yeah sure."

"Then go ahead, knock yourself out. If it ain't important I'll even give you a hand."

"Erm, right. It's just a thought, but do you think Sandaime might be interested in whatever information is inside Gato's headquarters?" That grabbed Sasuke's attention and he was now fully awake wondering why he hadn't thought of it.

"Yeah, I think so, I mean there could be all kinds of information on the criminal activities in the Elemental countries. Shit, we're going to have to wake Sakura. We've got to put guards on the compound before the locals loot it to much, or burn it to the ground." He was about to get up and get the pink haired kunoichi when Naruto surprised him again.

"Don't worry about it, I'll just create some Shadow clones and have them guard it for us." Forming the cross shaped hand-seal Naruto called out quietly, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," there were a series of small popping sounds as air was pushed aside with the formation of over fifty of his shadow clones.

"Damn it Naruto! You could have formed them outside the room," he yelled as he rolled to avoid being trampled by the mass exodus as the clones headed out to do what they'd been created for.

"Ooops my bad."

"Oh just forget it and go back to sleep. And don't even think of waking me up again or I'll create a genjutsu just for you," Sasuke threatened, which Naruto missed completely.

"A genjutsu just for me! Ooh-ooh what would it do?" Naruto always got a little excited at the thought of new jutsu.

"I'd make a world where you're the only person who knows there's such a thing as ramen, and no one will listen when you try to describe it so they can make it."

"Nooooo! I'll be good," Naruto capitulated before he got a second wind and leapt from under the covers to point at Sasuke accusingly, "Anyway there's no way I'd fall for such a genjutsu, as I'd never believe in a world that didn't have ramen, delicious ramen. It'd be too cruel a world….." His speech was cut short a moment later.

BANG-BANG-BANG, "Will you two shut up?" Sakura yelled through the wall, "Some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep!"

"Well that explains much."

"I heard that! Don't make me come in there and sort you out Naruto!" Sakura growled as she spoke through the thin wall.

"Eeep! I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping." Sasuke smirked at Naruto's panicked declaration before closing his eyes and drifting back into peaceful slumber where he met…..

/ Next morning \

Sakura arched her back as she stretched in a shaft of warm golden light the next morning. She hadn't had a restful night of sleep like that for a long time, not since she'd set her sights on the elusive Uchiha. After last night she felt she had a definite 'hand' up on the other girls who were pursuing him though, and had to smile at the double entendre.

That'd all happened after Naruto left the bath though. She let out a contented sigh as she remembered the artful way she'd leant forward as if to say something to Sasuke only to have the yukata she was 'wearing' gape wide giving the young Uchiha an eyeful, then as she'd pretended to panic at baring herself like that she lifted her hand to try and close the gap only to 'accidentally' lose her balance. The next thing she knew her hand was pressed into his lap as she tried to stop herself from falling over, then she'd finally had the ammunition she needed.

"Oh, it looks like someone's happy to see me!" she'd whispered hoarsely in his ear as her fingers curled around him while sliding her injured arm around his shoulders for added support, it didn't hurt that that had pressed her breasts tightly against his body either.

The other girls would be so jealous if she ever told them she held Sasuke in the palm of her hand, a very shocked Sasuke but Sasuke nonetheless. She'd be willing to bet she was the first kunoichi in her class who had put all those theoretical lessons on the arts of seduction to use. After the last few days she'd been having she'd felt the need for some attention from the love of her life and she'd had it for a full seventeen minutes before she learned enough to make him lose control with a groan of pleasure.

/ flashback \

"Sakura!" he'd moaned without realizing it.

"Shhh, just let me……" her emerald green eyes never left the obsidian black eyes of her light of love, it always surprised her how much warmth such a dark colour could hold, but then again it was such a rare event that anyone got close enough to see it that she shouldn't have been. She'd moved her hand just slightly and knew instantly that any protest he gave after that would be a lie as he surrendered totally to her tender ministrations.

/ end flashback \

That was as far as they'd gone last night, but she'd made it plain that she was willing to go further, and that she would once they were a little older. Then sealing the deal she'd stepped from the tub like a vision of a heathen goddess and walked over to get a towel from the pile by the door, bending over to reach the fluffy white sheet to wrap around her flushed body before she'd coyly looked over her shoulder at him with a silent promise. What she was promising he'd have to wait until he was a big boy to find out about.

Then she'd headed for bed leaving Sasuke to stare at the wall as he remembered some of the unkind words spoken by the girls about Sakura's unusual hair colour coming out of a bottle. It'd take everything he had not to deny it the next time he heard someone say such about her as he had irrefutable proof that she was indeed a natural pinkette.

If last night had been the best night of her life, she felt the smile slide from her face, then the day that preceded it was probably the worst. It was like a dream or maybe a nightmare to her in so many ways, the fact that she'd kicked ass and taken names, except she hadn't taken names not in the heat of the moment, there wasn't time to do more than act. They hadn't been people to her, they were labels, that one was bad guy A and that was evil bastard B, they hadn't been people to her at the time, but now she was beginning to feel different as she had more time to think.

More time to remember how it felt when the steel of her sword struck the flesh of her opponents, the feeling as their warm blood sprayed her face and hands, the sound they made when they realized they were dead or dying and the smell. She'd never forget the smell, of copper and other less pleasant smells as dying bodies expelled their waste as the person was shocked and their physical control slipped, overlaying the salty tang of the not too distant ocean that she'd thought was so nice just a few days before. Her stomach almost revolted at the thought as she fought to process all that'd happened.

It was no surprise that with such weighty matters on her mind she missed the opening of her rooms door, or the appearance of a certain loud-mouthed blonde.

"Hey Sakura, you awa- aiiiieee!"

"Oops," Sakura opened her eyes and found….

/ Naruto \

Opening his eyes an overly excited Naruto bolted from his futon knowing that the day was going to bring a few surprises such as two teams of ANBU were going to find out they weren't really needed as anything but a security force to stop another crime lord from moving in while Naruto talked to the old man about some of his ideas.

Then there was the fact that now that the sun was up there was no way Sakura could object to being woken up. Sasuke wasn't surprised anymore at his energetic room-mates activities, a little upset that he'd been woken sure, but he didn't want to be asleep when the ANBU arrived either so he decided to join Naruto and get dressed and grab some breakfast.

Naruto bolted down the hallway still pulling on his only other jacket, when he reached the door he was looking for he slid it open and walked inside.

"Hey Sakura, you awa- aiiiieee!" Naruto turned his head and looked at the kunai quivering in the wooden frame of the door.

"Oops," Sakura sat up leaning on one elbow as she looked at her team-mate, before rubbing her eyes with her free hand. Naruto decided it was one of the most cute scenes he'd ever seen, not that he'd seen too many cute things in his life. "What do you want Naruto?" Now that she was a little more with it she was wondering how to punish him for invading her room without permission.

"Uh, just wanted to let you know that our reinforcements should be arriving in a few hours, and that we secured Gato's base before the villagers could burn it to the ground," Naruto answered nervously under her continued glare.

"Oh, good, now if that's all? Get out!" she flicked her wrist and watched in satisfaction as a second blade struck the now closed door

Naruto didn't stop once he reached the bottom of the stairs, nearly knocking Sasuke off his feet as he headed for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"To check on my clones," he yelled over his shoulder as he bolted down the jetty towards dry land. It took him ten minutes to reach his destination, sure he'd been moving fast but he'd hardly been pushing himself. The compound hadn't changed much since he'd seen it last, a little more smoke damage from the burning gate, and the fact that the guards were all blonde was the only thing he could see. The absence of the bodies the genin team had left behind was another plus as far as he was concerned.

"Oi, who's in charge?"

"Who wants to know?"

"It's me!" Naruto yelled back.

"Who's 'Me'?" the clone smirked down at the original who was wondering if he really was as obnoxious as he sounded from down on the ground. Deciding to not waste anymore time with this clone he dispersed it, which had the added bonus of gaining the clones memories of where the clone who'd taken charge was. It turned out that the 'leader' had taken residence in Gato's throne room. Walking in he found the clone up on the dais at the far end, chuckling evilly to himself while stroking a white cushion as if it were a cat. He'd have to remember to make sure the 'leader' of a bunshin group had as much to do as the other clones in future, it was mildly disturbing to find that your clone had half formed(baked) plans to take over the world with his bunshin armies. There had been some positive effects though, the dead mercenaries had been buried in a mass grave and all their armour, weapons and belongings had been piled up to be sorted later, there were also a number of clones running around inventorying the supplies on hand and mapping the complex.

Looking at the map of what had been discovered so far left some interesting 'holes' in the floorplan that would lead any competent shinobi to suspect hidden rooms. He'd been looking around for signs of one of the 'rooms' for an hour when he discovered a hidden switch.

"Cool," he said to the air as he pushed the button. Getting an answer was rather surprising.

"What's cool?" Naruto spun on the spot drawing a kunai and found himself facing the other members of his team.

"Uh, hi guys!" Naruto greeted them with his usual enthusiasm, he'd been dealing with the stress much better than the other two so far since much of his life had been a continuous nightmare. In fact Naruto wasn't sure that either of them understood what it meant when he said he'd been treated such and such a way by the villagers. They had their own ideas of what the villagers were like and the way they treated him didn't fit the picture they'd formed in their sheltered lives. Now that they had heard his secret they might view the actions of the village in a different light but that would take time.

"So what's cool Naruto?" Sakura asked again when the first time didn't elicit a response.

"Oh, I just found a secret room," the blonde enthused as he attempted to rush into the room and find out what was in there.

"Hold your horses Naruto, you don't know anything about this room, it could be trapped, you could fall a hundred feet to your death in a pit trap. Or be hit with a thousand kunai, or electrocuted, or burned…." Naruto tuned her out after a while as her ideas got more and more outlandish and her enthusiasm for new and painful ways to kill him started to unnerve him.

"She's got a point though Naruto. Then there's the fact that the dust in there is about an inch deep, you step in there without taking proper precautions you could set off an explosion."

"Eh?"

"Weren't you paying attention when we were taught about basic explosives? Dust in the air like that could work just like a flour bomb."

"Sure I was paying attention…..That's where a spark can ignite a chain reaction in a flammable medium causing a concussive blast." Sasuke and Sakura just stared at him as he recited Iruka-sensei's lesson almost verbatim.

"How did you remember that?"

"I dunno, it just came to me," Naruto frowned for a moment in thought before dismissing it as unimportant, "So we don't go rushing in there?"

"No, in fact I don't think it's a good idea to go in there at all. We should go and wait for the ANBU to arrive."

"Yeah, let's go Naruto. Sasuke's right, we shouldn't mess with this. Let the ANBU take the risks of exploring this 'secret room'," Sakura gave Sasuke such a look that he blushed as he remembered the last time she looked at him like that. Naruto looked closer at his two team-mates and wondered what was going on between them.

"Are you blushing teme?" Naruto asked in his 'I'm being obnoxious' voice, and smirked when the blush deepened further. 'Oh, so something happened last night? Couldn't have been after he got to the room…..', "that leaves the bath!" Naruto might be a little more perceptive than he used to be, but that didn't make him any wiser, deep inside the Kitsune sighed in resignation about the inevitable outcome of this conversation and didn't even try to stop it figuring something's are best taught through experience.

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked as she started to blush slightly.

"So I was right wasn't I? You two did something last night in the bath, right? Am I right?" Sakura having had enough just smacked him in the back of the head as hard as she could and gave a satisfied grunt as she watched him collapse into a heap at her feet, turning around she stalked over to Sasuke and grabbed his ear, "Come along Sasuke, let's leave the idiot here and go wait for out back-up."

"Ow-ow-ow, what did I do?" Sasuke asked as the pink haired kunoichi dragged him away.

Naruto waited until the sounds of stomping feet couldn't be heard anymore and then cracked open an eye, 'Good they're gone,' jumping to his feet he created ten clones.

"Right, you lot, I've got a job for you. You're going to clean out all the dust in that room. You! Go in there now, but step carefully." The clone looked hesitant since it had all the memories of its maker and knew there might be traps, but it did as it was told anyway tiptoeing into the room afraid that any moment might be its last. When after ten steps there was no reaction they all let out a sigh of relief. "Alright, you're the safety officer, if too much dust gets in the air you're to stop everyone until it settles, you also have to make sure no one enters the area with a naked flame or something that could set off a spark. The rest of you find some brooms and something to put the dust in and get to work."

"What are you gonna be doing?"

"Me? I'm going to wait with my team for the back-up. Don't forget, I want this room spotless from top to bottom. If you have to leave for any reason, close the door, I can always reopen it later," Naruto left the clones to work as he headed for the incomplete bridge.

He'd decided to wait on the bridge as it was the most likely point of access for the teams of ANBU. Only the last two hundred metres of the road surface hadn't been completed, the piers that it would rest on were in place and spaced a handy fifty metres apart making ideal jump points for the highly skilled ninja. Forming a couple of clones he sent them off to find the others when he discovered his team weren't waiting where he thought it was most likely for the ANBU to appear and tell them where he was. Then settled down to wait patiently, after half an hour one of the clones dispersed letting him know that the others were a little further along the island at the small dock area in case the ANBU arrived by boat, and then dispersed the other since it was no longer needed.

As the hours passed Naruto decided to do some training on his chakra control by setting clones to walk up and down the stone pillar that supported the end of the bridge as he set to thinking about the last week now that he had the time to do so. He started off just trying to remember everything that had happened to them in that time, but soon discovered a number of things that puzzled him. Number one being what the Hokage had meant when he'd said Kakashi-sensei was out of line taking them on such a dangerous mission once he'd learned that it would in fact be dangerous, then there was the word 'hubris', what did that mean?

"**Hubris, or over-weening pride. A sense of self that makes you think you can do no wrong, make no mistakes and are the best at whatever you're doing, regardless of proof otherwise.**"

"Eh?" Naruto asked intelligently.

"**You asked what hubris is,**" the Kyubi said.

"Oh, so it's something you'd know all about then?"

"…" Naruto was laughing so hard he almost missed the dispersal of one of his clones, though he got a good look at Sasuke who'd just told the clone that the original had better get his arse back to Tsunami's house for a team meeting. Deciding he'd rather deal with a slightly upset team than an irate Uchiha with PMS he dispersed the clones he'd formed for the chakra exercises and left one to sit on the end of the bridge and wait for their relief force to arrive.

"Right, you just sit here and wait for the ANBU to arrive, tell them where we are okay?"

"Yeah," the clone watched Naruto leave running along the side of the bridge parallel to the water, his chakra control had been improved immensely thanks to all the clones experience, he looked like he was barely concentrating on the exercise at all. The clone watched as the boss disappeared into the distance and then settled back to wait, not really having any task other than waiting the clone quickly got bored with the situation and decided if cloud watching was good enough for Shikamaru then it was good enough for him. An hour passed as the usually energetic form lay back on the cold stone wondering what the fascination was, it was so deeply concentrating on trying to figure out if the cloud above looked like a rabbit or a just a plain cloud that it was taken by surprise when a group of ninja appeared next to him in a diamond formation. It took a moment longer for him to realize that they were hunter-nins, and that it was a completely unnerving feeling to find yourself the centre of attention of four powerful ninja like that. The only thing that stopped Naruto from being scared witless was that they had leaf insignia on their hitai-ate.

"State your name and rank," the person at the forefront demanded.

"Naruto Uzumaki, genin," Naruto swallowed nervously as the man's attention sharpened further. He didn't have time to blink as the man on the far-most left disappeared in a blur and reappeared behind him.

"Die, demon spawn," Naruto's eyes widened as the kunai punched in between his fourth and fifth ribs and tore his heart to pieces. An instant later the ANBU's eyes widened as the young boy disappeared in a puff of smoke, knowing that the boy hadn't had time to react even if the kawarimi technique had been automatic told him that he'd attacked a solid clone. "Shit! We've got to find him before the other teams arrive. He knows we're after him." The voice was almost emotionless as it discussed the situation with his team

"Belay that! Complete our primary mission and then if we have time we can look for the Kyubi brat, but only if time permits." The one who spoke looked around his team and waited for each to either nod or shake their head, when two of the three had agreed to his plan he set off for the interior of the island.

// Tsunami's house \\

"Oh shit!"

"What's up with you Naruto?"

"The ANBU just arrived," Naruto shuddered as he remembered the feeling of steel sliding into his body.

"What's the problem then?" Sakura frowned, the fact that the men the Hokage had sent to relieve them had finally arrived was a good thing wasn't it?

"The problem is they're hunter nins, and they just assassinated one of my clones."

"Don't be stupid dobe, it was probably an accident or something. Why'd a hunter-nin from Konoha want to kill you?"

"Yeah, you're right, it was probably an accident," Naruto admitted quietly, "I can see it now, an experienced ANBU level ninja who's in front of me just happens to trip and stab me in the back after using shunshin, while whispering, 'Die demon spawn!' in my ear. Yeah, an accident. Are you fucking insane?" Naruto finished by yelling at the Uchiha.

Sasuke's eye twitched in annoyance, but had to give Naruto credit. It was even more unlikely that the assassination of his clone had been an accident. Another thing he'd admit was that the clones were that well formed that he could believe that even a hunter-nin squad could be tricked into believing it was actually Naruto they'd killed. Especially if they were in a hurry.

"So what do we do now?"

"Well they're after me, so I'd better hide, while you make contact. I'll catch up with you guys in Konoha." Naruto managed to not look too glum at the prospect of being separated from his team.

"Hold up, something doesn't quite fit."

"Like what?"

"Well, they're ninja hunters right?

"Um, yeah I think we covered that," Naruto and Sakura wondered where he was going.

"So they made a mistake, they mistook a clone for the real thing. I'll admit they're very good clones, but they shouldn't have made a mistake like that."

"Eh?"

"They hunt ninja for a living Naruto, they'd have seen all kinds of tricks and know how to spot them," Sakura answered a little vexed at how dense the smallest member of their team could be.

"It doesn't add up!" Sasuke thumped the table, "Unless….."

"Unless? Come on spit it out already teme. Those bastards tried to kill me and you think it don't make sense?"

"Unless you were a target of opportunity," the dark haired boy said triumphantly. It all fit.

"But there's nothing else on the island….." Sakura trailed off.

"What?"

"The base!"

"What?" Naruto asked again but this time even more puzzled, "Why'd they want to get to Gato's base? That makes even less sense than what he said," Naruto pointed at his team mate.

"…." Sakura closed her mouth as she couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation.

"What if…..What if Gato wasn't working alone like we thought? What if someone from Konoha sent those hunters to hide the fact from whoever comes to investigate Gato? What if that someone…"

"There's a lot of 'ifs' in there Sasuke. What if it's one of the other hidden villages?"

"It doesn't fit, there's no way a foreign power could act as quickly as that even if they had a spy in Konoha. I mean they'd have to have been in the village to receive orders quickly enough to get here before Konoha's ANBU, and there's no way they could hide in the village." Don't blame Sasuke, he doesn't know any better.

"Alright, granted, but there's too many possibilities for us to figure out, first we've got to survive so we can report. How long do you think we've got before they reach the compound?"

"Um, it took me half an hour to run it, and only fifteen to get here. They're faster than me…"

"Everyone's faster than you Naruto," Sasuke smirked.

"This ain't the time teme, see me if we live. Um just to let you know, we don't have to worry about where or when they're going. I just found out. They're destroying the clones I left to guard Gato's place. We were right they're going to destroy the place or remove information, and I can't tell which. Either way we'd better move," Naruto made for the door only to be stopped by Sasuke.

"And that's why you'll always lose to me dobe, you just rush in without any thought about what to do when we get there."

"I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna kick ass is what I'm gonna do. If we don't get there my clones won't be able to hold them much longer and we might as well sit here and wait for them to come get us." Naruto shrugged Sasuke's hand off his shoulder and headed out the door.

"Damn idiot," he mumbled as he moved to follow, "Come on Sakura-chan what are you waiting for an engraved invitation?" The endearment was so unusual, try earth-shatteringly new that a furiously blushing Sakura had to take a few deep breaths to collect her wits before she fainted like a certain Hyuga. It only took three breaths before she was ready to rush after the other two.

"Wait up you two!" she yelled furiously as she pursued the two blurs through the forest. As Naruto sprang from branch to branch he assessed each bit of information he received from the clones that were defeated, they were definitely at a disadvantage and had lost nearly forty percent of the clones in the first minute of the engagement. The others were taking a much more defensive approach, attacking from cover and making the hunters come to them. Not that it slowed them down much, they had better training than Naruto had ever dreamed of receiving until he'd been placed on Team 7, and once they were in range of a clone it wouldn't last more than a second or two.

That was with just three of the ANBU squad, the fourth was engaged in gathering chakra for a technique, one that it took Naruto a moment to figure out. He'd seen it before a few times, most notably in the bell test and couldn't figure out why a fully trained ninja would have trouble gathering enough chakra for it since Sasuke had managed it with ease years before he graduated the academy.

No one would ever mistake Naruto for a mental giant, or a genius, but one thing he did have was a mind that put two and two together and quickly came up with the right answer. Give him a long term plan to form and he'd probably fail, Shikamaru would be much better at that. Put him in a desperate fight as the underdog and he'd come up with winning tactics in mere moments, something that wasn't possible without a clear and analytical mind. So it was no surprise that two thirds of the way there he stumbled in shock.

"Stupid!"

"Huh?"

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Naruto stumbled as a weary Sakura smashed into the back of him unable to stop she'd been pushing herself so hard.

Sasuke just stared for a moment.

"Look underneath the underneath! Damn!"

"What's biting you Naruto, you were all set to storm the castle a second ago?"

"I still am, I just realized how stupid I am. Tell me something Sasuke, when you see someone wearing a white mask what do you see?"

"I see a member of ANBU," the boy in question frowned.

"Yeah me too, and when you think of ANBU you think of highly skilled, powerful ninja right?"

"Of course, you don't get picked for elite service if you don't have the skills."

"Let's go, we've got some ass to kick," Naruto made to dash off again only to have Sasuke grab his arm.

"Not until you explain what this is all about," as he frowned at the blonde.

"No time," Naruto temporized until he saw the look on Sasuke's face, "Alright, short and sweet. I added one and nothing and got ten. Sure these guys are dressed right, sure they're really fast but besides that they're having trouble making a Grand Fireball. Now maybe they've used up all their chakra getting here, or maybe they aren't what they look like. Don't really matter, we can take em!" Naruto declared as the fingers restraining him went slack. Not needing to be told twice he bolted between two trees and was almost out of sight before the remaining team members reacted.

"Hold up Naruto!"

"Get your arse back here so I can pound you, idiot!" A moment later the small clearing was empty as a black and pink blur followed the blonde one that had preceded them.

They had nearly caught up when they came in sight of the walled compound, only to pass the stationary form of Naruto as he stared into space. He didn't even react as a streak of black shot past his left shoulder and another of pink nearly collided with his right. It took them nearly fifty metres to stop before they could backtrack, the look on his face almost stopped them from interrupting him as he stood with a sublimely happy expression on his face.

"What's the problem now?" Sasuke demanded as he walked towards the human statue, he didn't even blink when the Uchiha snapped his fingers an inch from his nose.

Naruto was staring into a perfect blue sky, the last memory of one of his clones, for his pranking heart it was a moment of sheer Zen perfection. The world around him focused on one thought, the perfect plan even as the world started to dim around him.

Blinking his blue eyes stupidly as he tried to figure out what was wrong he noted that Sakura had pinched his nose closed with her left hand and using her elbow to keep his mouth closed as she held him in a headlock, cutting his airways.

"So you want to explain why you keep stopping?"

"No time, we got to move now or we'll lose the chance to take them all in one hit," Naruto bolted again leaving Sasuke and Sakura in his dust wake.

"I swear if they don't kill him, I will!"

"Get in line Sakura, he's mine. Let's catch the dobe before he does something even more stupid." They moved quickly as they saw Naruto make the top of the wall on the East side of the compound. They caught up again just in time to see one of the many clones drop its henge of being a shovel, while under the feet of one of the ANBU squad, a fact that left a stunned ninja falling into the courtyard below as he tripped over the suddenly uneven terrain.

Naruto didn't stop for a second as he yelled, "Tajuu Kage Bunshin!" the cross seal was barely formed when nearly a hundred clones appeared. "Alright you guys know what to do!" Eighty clones dove into the courtyard to engage and distract the men who'd turned up to try and destroy Gato's base, while the rest picked up one of the myriad drums and buckets that surrounded the original, before bolting around the walls perimeter. Naruto swore as the one readying the Katon technique suddenly released it directly through the large double doors, it met the wall opposite and splashed, igniting multiple fires within the building.

"Damn!" Naruto checked the position of his clones on the wall and gave a grunt of satisfaction, "Good enough," and kicked a bucket hard enough to send it across the courtyard, the signal given Naruto grabbed Sakura and Sasuke and dragged them over the wall.

"Naruto what the hell," Sakura yelled. Sasuke remained quiet as he processed the last thing he'd seen before Naruto dragged him over the wall. He'd watched as the assorted containers sailed out over the courtyard trailing plumes of grey that descended towards the ground as the containers continued to spin.

"Shut up Sakura, if what he plans works…. Run!" Sasuke didn't hesitate as he grabbed Sakura's hand and bolted for the treeline trailing Naruto behind. They weren't even close to making it when the ground shook and a sound so loud that the description loud barely did it justice erupted. Inside the compound the for ANBU didn't even have time to puzzle about just what was happening as the descending dust cloud struck them and washed inside the doors to meet the flames of the blazing base. The cloud met its first spark and then the world went white as the air itself seemed to ignite explosively. Pressure forcing the explosion out into clear air where the explosive reaction only grew as it met the massive dust cloud. The shaft of fire smashed through the ninja squad throwing them into the compounds wall at just short of the speed of sound, needless to say they weren't about to get up again.

When the secondary explosion began the shockwave didn't even hesitate as it smashed the walls flat like the opening petals of a flower, the previously destroyed gates pin-wheeled into the sky as a massive mushroom cloud of flame and debris speared the sky. The three genin were picked up and thrown like so much flotsam in a storm as the shockwave passed over them.

"Shiiiiiiiit!" Naruto yelled as he soared through the trees.

Sasuke passed closer to a tree and manage to use chakra to get a grip on the coarse bark and swing into the lee of the tree, sheltered by the trunk that even now was beginning to succumb to the pressure and lean crazily away from the blast. Sakura disappeared into a large bush screaming her lungs out and Naruto managed to stop himself by slamming into a tree about sixty metres into the forest, upside down and was pressed into the bark for five seconds until the explosion abated and let him drop to the forest floor.

Staggering to his feet Sasuke watched as the mushroom cloud continued to expand in awe, he'd never seen anything like it before and his eyes began to glaze. He didn't hear as Sakura came up behind him, and wasn't likely to either as his eardrums hadn't recovered from the blasts. Naruto joined them a moment later to survey the damage the blast had done.

/ 15km's away \

Out on the bay a small boat was making its way to its final destination, onboard eight people sat and waited patiently for their boat to cross the strait between Land of Fire and Land of Waves. They were taking the chance to relax after a twelve hour forced march across the breadth of their land. Two units of heavy assault ANBU, troops that though they could in a pinch utilize the great speed necessary for a pitched battle would prefer to save their energy for hitting enemy strong-points with massive area effect jutsu

There were only three reasons they knew of that would make the village despatch two squads of ANBU to save a lowly genin squad that had lost its jounin. First and foremost was the fact that Konoha absolutely did not abandon its ninja in times of trouble, secondly there was no way the council would let the village lose the last Uchiha. Then there was the fact they had a chance to take down the A-class missing nin Zabuza Momichi(the clone that reported to Sarutobi didn't know Zabuza had departed since dispersing clones only share memories with their creator) for the bounty.

The two teams were relaxing as only experienced warriors could, seven of them were sleeping while the last member sat on look-out, the axiom that a warrior should rest whenever a chance presented in case they didn't get a chance later was taken to heart by the entire team. That is until the lookout watched the biggest fireball he'd ever seen rise above the horizon and began swearing loud enough to wake the others in the boat.

"Report," the designated leader of the team demanded then followed the pointed finger, "Nevermind." She said as she watched the ball of flame continue to rise, then squinted into the blaze. Blinking slightly as she moved her head from side to side to confirm what she was seeing.

"Scatter!" she yelled as she grabbed a pack from the pile and leapt over the side of the boat, running across the surface she didn't even look back to see if her team had followed the order. Disciplined men that they were they never hesitated and left the boat headed in all directions as they vaguely heard a screaming sound grow. Having gained enough clearance the captain turned in time to watch a flaming projectile roar out of the sky and smash into the water less than ten metres from the boat they'd just left completely swamping it as the panel of flaming wood hissed and steamed as it sank out of sight. Twenty seconds later it bobbed back into sight a little further away and they could see that it was a five metre by two section of a heavy wooden gate.

Eight experienced ANBU stared at the thing as it bobbed peacefully in the waves, then turned to the dissipating explosion, then back at the wood.

"Alright men, time to find out who the fuck threw that at us," without another word they set out across the surface of the sea at the fastest pace they'd set since they left the village.

/ Gato's base \

Naruto slowly shook his head in disbelief, he'd expected a large fireball, what he hadn't expected was that the concussion wave would be powerful enough to knock the walls outward. If he'd known a little more about fortifications he'd have known that they'd been buttressed against external force not from internal explosions and therefore hadn't been able to withstand even a tenth of what had hit them. The front of the base itself was a different matter, it was built to take direct attack, that didn't mean it had escaped the impact either, the blast had pushed the stonework inwards up to fifteen feet, windows that had been armoured had simply been smashed back through their frames and torn their way deeper into the base.

Naruto was the first to regain his hearing, with the Kyubi pushing chakra towards the area and healing the damage, so he was the first to hear the faint crackling as flames that the concussion blast had put out slowly grew once again. That and that Sasuke was still reliving the sight of the glorious explosion.

"Boom! Geh-heh-heh-he. BooooooM!" he giggled quietly as he made expansive gestures with his hands, he had to be doing it quietly because she couldn't hear him from a couple of feet away. Sakura was looking at the destruction with dazed emerald eyes until they locked on the blonde and she stalked towards him.

"You idiot!" she yelled as she smacked him over the head, then repeated it a few more times since the first time was so therapeutic, "Warn us next time!" She stopped and looked puzzled for a moment, then blinked as she held her hand up to her ear and gingerly tapped against it and heard nothing. "Damn it Naruto, if I'm deaf on top of everything else I'll skin you!"

Naruto backed away from the advancing kunoichi then surprised Sakura as he turned back to the quickly spreading flames with a yell that neither of his team was able to hear.

"Crap! It's still on fire! Water! We need water, lots of water," about to form the hand-seal for Kage bunshin, he was stopped by a deep booming voice.

"**No! Don't waste your chakra, there's a better way!**"

"Huh?"

"**There's a better way,**" the demon fox said as it felt its container calm down a little, "**Take deep breaths and close your eyes. Now move your chakra into a sphere around you,**" the demon directed quickly.

"**Keep breathing deeply, now push your chakra outwards, feel your chakra, feel it touch the world around you. Feel for any moisture, you'll know what it feels like when you feel it, so don't ask. No, not that, that's your team, you'll kill them if you draw the moisture from them, discard them from the sphere, unless you want to kill them of course in which case go ahead,**" Kyubi snickered evilly as he coached Naruto, "**Good, now push the sphere further until you find more moisture**." Naruto wasn't even sure what he was being asked to do but so far it all made sense, he could feel a massive amount of water below him and then stopped waiting for more instructions.

"**Excellent, now move all of the chakra into the water and…no, not like that, you're just pushing the water aside. Mix your chakra with the water, more, you'll need much more than that,**" it felt like an eternity to Naruto as he strained to control his chakra outside his body, he was beginning to feel the strain of the whole thing when Kyubi broke back into his thoughts, "**That's enough, now think about the nature of the chakra, what does it feel like to you. You're going to try and match it to the water that surrounds it."**

"Why?" Naruto asked through gritted teeth.

"B**ecause I told you to do so, now let it all flow together, it's all one and one is all,**" Kyubi paused for a moment while Naruto figured out how to do as he'd been asked, it sounded simple but it really wasn't. The trick was to not tell Naruto how hard it was or the process would elude him for longer as he sought to understand it. He didn't need to understand, he just needed to do it, understanding could wait for another day, "**Now pull the chakra back towards you, that's it, a little faster, hold it together. Don't lose it now, bring it up in front of you…."**

/ Sakura \

She wasn't finished paying Naruto back for the scare she'd been given, she wasn't even close, but had to admit the way he'd just turned away and dismissed her was slightly unnerving. It was as if she ceased to exist for him.

"Naruto! Are you even listening to me?" Waving her hands in front of his face didn't garner a response of any kind, neither did kicking him in the shin, he was like a statue, but then so was Sasuke. The only positive was that at least Naruto wasn't giggling to himself and saying the occasional 'Boooom!', and the hand gestures describing the explosion were just plain creepy.

The blonde quickly regained her attention when his hands rose from his side and held them cupped about three feet apart, a small gasp was the only sound as a pinpoint of light formed in the very centre. It didn't stay small for long though and expanded rapidly. His hands didn't move but the sphere of chakra continued to expand, his own body not even seeming to hinder it as it pushed through him and out the other side. At six feet across Sakura decided the thing was getting too damn close to her for her liking. Stepping back hesitantly she gasped as the sphere of chakra suddenly expanded as if the person forming it suddenly gained confidence in his ability, it overshot her position by ten feet passing through and around her.

"So much," she whispered hoarsely as the essence of Naruto surrounded her, she could feel nuances of him that she'd never known before. Chakra wasn't just energy as most civilians thought, it was made up of the persons physical and spiritual energies, as such the more powerful the chakra the easier it was to read the spiritual make-up of the person. Unless they knew how to neutralize the spiritual essence. Naruto was very easy to read, she could see things about him that she knew he wouldn't want to share with anyone.

The chakra sphere was one of the first control exercises that was taught in the academy, and one they continued to use up until they graduated, it was a relatively easy process, only requiring the control to draw it forth and hold it stable. Throughout their academy years they'd been tested once a year for their chakra capacity, measured by the size of the sphere they could form. She could form a sphere nearly a foot and a half across, giving her a low E rank chakra reserve, Sasuke had tested out at nearly D rank with a sphere of nearly three feet. Naruto was an anomaly, everyone knew he had chakra but whenever he was asked to do the exercise he'd had great trouble drawing forth a stable sphere and therefore had remained unranked every year he'd been in the academy. Iruka-sensei had shown them the exercise each time by producing a six foot sphere, which he told them was a low C rank chakra reserve.

Now here was the supposed dead-last of the academy producing something this huge? It had to be at least upper A rank and maybe even higher if this wasn't all he could pull forth. That was without even considering the red chakra that he'd told them belonged to the Kyubi imprisoned within him. Shuddering at the thought she was taken completely aback when the chakra disappeared within the blink of an eye, though she knew he hadn't dismissed the chakra at all, it was still being held together but for what purpose she couldn't tell.

Sakura was still backing away from Naruto when she noted that where he'd been completely unaffected before by summoning so much power, he was starting to show signs of fatigue. His shoulders were shaking and he grasped his fists in determination as he lifted them from his side. Casting around to find out what was happening she noted that the compacted soil of the courtyard was bubbling almost thirty feet away as water started to well out of the ground. Half a minute later there was an undulating dome of water nearly ten feet high and still it continued to rise. A perfect sphere of water suspended above the earth in a way that she'd never seen before. When his intense blue eyes flickered open she took the chance to approach.

"Naruto?""

/ Naruto \

Naruto jerked as he heard the kunoichi speak to him but tried to ignore her words as they were distracting even if she didn't mean them to be. The sphere above him wobbled slightly as his attention wavered.

"**No! Hold it steady, do not let your attention stray from the task at hand or all of you effort is wasted!**" Naruto was grateful as he heard the words and watched as the sphere steadied once more. "**You surprise me kit, I didn't know you had it in you," **the fox commented and then smiled as he felt Naruto's attention firm even further at his challenging tone, it could so easily gone the other way if the boy had allowed his notoriously fragile ego to get in the way of his control.

He was going to need every ounce of control he could muster for the next step. Making sure that his eyes remained open he took a hesitant step forward keeping the centre of the sphere at the same distance from him. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as he forced the energy to contain the water while still gliding it forwards towards the doors of the base. When it met the collapsed doorway there was a wet sounding impact as Naruto forced the water to move into the constricted passageway beyond, the once clear water taking on an eerie glow of orange as it was lit by the fires within.

The first fire was smothered by the water almost immediately, its air supply cut off as water flowed over it, then absorbed the latent heat still stored in the wood. Moving quicker now as more of the sphere was pushed inside, the pressurised water pushed into every nook and cranny extinguishing as it went. Naruto followed in the wake of his chakra, noting a set of stairs that headed downwards, though it was of no interest since there was no smoke rising from them. It seemed that the fire had gone upwards. The only thing to show his passing was the occasional charred spot, the water never left his control even for a moment leaving the surfaces behind him as dry as they were before he approached them. It took seven minutes for him to extinguish all the fires, finally pushing the water back outside through an upper story window, the mass of water would have been steaming if he allowed it to escape. Pushing the water as far as he could from himself he watched it sail out into the clearing outside beyond where the walls had once stood and released it in a torrent of steaming water that quickly flowed away.

Having done what he'd set out to do Naruto looked down at his team-mates and gave them a wave.

/ Outside \

Sasuke blinked as he came back from wherever he'd been, he wasn't sure what had happened but he did remember the flames, lots of flames, and had to shake his head to clear it out before he drifted off again. All he remembered was the dobe dragging them off the walls and not even a minute later the glorious column of fire as it soared into the heavens, he had to blink again to clear his vision. Deciding that he really needed to wake up he slapped his cheeks sharply and noted that it did the trick. Turning to Sakura, he just had to find out what was going on.

"Hey Sakura, what the hell was that?"

"The baka!"

"What did the dobe do this time?"

"He nearly blew us up, that's what he did," Sakura's face flushed as her temper simmered just below the surface, as soon as Naruto was close enough she was going to give him what-for.

"Eh? I thought he used all the explosive tags yesterday to get rid of the freighter," except for the last of Kakashi's tags. They still hadn't had the time to check and find out what made the explosion that much larger with the jounin's tags as opposed to their own.

"Yes, well it turns out he didn't need any. We gave him all the ammunition he needed when we told him about flour bombs," seeing the confusion wasn't being cleared up for him she elaborated, "Seems he decided to leave some clones to clean up that hidden room while we waited. They poured the dust out over the courtyard and when it met the fires inside, boom."

"That wasn't 'Boom!', that was insane, he nearly killed us all!" Sasuke's memory was gradually coming back to him.

"Yeah, well if you want a shot at him you'll have to get in line," she growled as she looked up at the window where Naruto had been, but he'd already moved off, and she was hoping he was coming out soon.

/ Naruto \

Naruto paced down a slightly charred corridor and wondered just how he'd done it, technically he knew that he had done it, he just wasn't sure how. There was only one way to find out as well.

'Alright Kyubi, what was with the water? What did you do?"

"**It's always me isn't it? For your information that was all you kit.**"

'Me? How?'

"**Simple, you have an elemental affinity for water. That was the simplest form of suiton technique, though it was impressive in scope.**"

'Say what?'

"**You do know what an elemental affinity is don't you?**"

'Sure,' Naruto scratched the back of his neck as he walked down a flight of stairs.

"**Don't bother trying to lie to me kit, you're not very good at it. If you don't know something, just admit it and let someone fill you in so you do know it. Only a fool does what you just did. Now before you bristle at me I shall tell you what you should have already known. As you probably already know, many of the jutsu you use are of an elemental nature, such as fire, or water. Are you following me so far?**"

'Yeah, I ain't stupid!'

"**No, just ignorant. Now pay attention, an affinity gives the caster an advantage if they're using the element they have an affinity in. You for example have an affinity for air, that means that you'll learn jutsu from that field easier, it would also reduce the amount of chakra you need to cast a jutsu and increase the power of said jutsu as well. Well it would if your chakra control didn't suck so badly.**"

'Yeah well it's easy to pick on me, it's not like anyone taught me before Kakashi told us how to do the tree climbing exercise.'

"**That won't be enough if you intend to use your other affinities.**"

'What other affinities? I thought you said I had an air affinity?'

"**You did, but then you gained the others. You do remember why you puked your guts up yesterday don't you?**"

'Like I could forget,' Naruto shuddered at the memory.

"**As I said, you were acting on a new set of instincts that all young Kitsune act upon. When we're young we have the ability to absorb genetic material. That pitiful sensei of yours was useful, he gave you an affinity for fire, he also reinforced your air affinity. You also have a water affinity from….. Haku, that was the name, yes?**"

'Yeah,' he frowned as he heard the contempt in the demons voice.

"**Before you bristle at me over something that insignificant, let me finish. You also gained a few other things from your night time foray. You gained a couple of bloodlines, giving you the ability to combine elements to form others. Both lightning and ice, are very powerful abilities. Lightning has some of the most powerful attack jutsu ever devised, along with your amplified air affinity I'd say you'd make one of the villages strongest ninja. That all depends on whether you survive long enough to learn to use it all.**"

"What do ya mean if I survive?"

"**Have you forgotten the men who tried to kill you already? We still don't know who sanctioned them and if they'll do it again. Worst case scenario is that the Hokage himself sanctioned the assassination attempt. If that's the case then you'd probably save yourself some time and find a stonemason to make you a headstone.**"

"Eh?"

"**(sigh) It's simple, if the Hokage wants you dead then there's nothing on this planet that will save you. You don't have the knowledge of the power to save yourself, and you don't have the friends for someone else to save you,**" Kyubi explained with a weary voice, it truly hated to have to spell everything out like this but then again with Naruto's lack of education it wasn't really that surprising.

"Hey, there ain't no way the old man'd do that to me," Naruto yelled as the memory of the kind old man who'd helped him over the years failed to mesh with a man willing to kill him like this.

"**Good point, can you tell me why that makes sense?**"

Naruto frowned as he considered the question, he really hated this kind of thing, it was boring in the extreme but…..Hmmm, "You already said it! If the old man wanted me dead then I'd already be dead!" Naruto paused as a sobering thought suddenly hit him, 'Without the old man….I'd already have been dead,' It was like a bucket of ice water washed through him.

"**That's right, five whatever's to Uzumaki-san. It's a good start, you've finally realized that you aren't ten feet tall and kunai proof. You are alive because the Hokage wills it so. That and the fact that I've been healing you for years. The truth is Naruto that you're weak, without my chakra you'd never have lived long enough to graduate the academy.**"

"Who're you calling weak?" a moment later he winced as he felt a surge of Kyubi's chakra slam into his chakra coils, "Ow, damnit! What the fuck was that for?"

"**You're not listening if you have to ask that question. With all your advantages you're as weak as that Uchiha brat.**"

"What are you talking about? Sasuke's the strongest ninja in our year!"

"**Only because you never paid attention to the lessons your teachers were trying to give you.**"

"But they were so booooring!"

"**Of course it was, I can understand how it could be boring to know taijutsu, or poisons and antidotes, or effective infiltration techniques or…..**"

"Alright already, I get it! But what guy wants to learn about poisons, isn't that one of the kunoichi arts?"

"**Wrong! It's part of the 'I'm going to kill my target and get away alive' arts. Girl arts and boy arts have nothing to do with being a ninja, there's only one rule. You survive while your target dies. It's simple enough that even you should be able to understand it.**"

"Yeah but, poisons are for weaklings."

"**Let me give you a little scenario. You been given a task, you've got to take out or capture a traitor to the village. He's a chunin and he's carrying secrets he shouldn't have. You know where he is, and where he's going. You've found the clearing, it's perfect for an ambush, he's even got his back to you. What are you going to do?**" Naruto frowned at the smirk he could hear in the foxes voice.

"Well he's only a chounin," Naruto remembered the time he'd fought Mizuki, "So I'd make hundreds of clones and overwhelm him."

"**Alright. You take two steps into the clearing and you're dead,**"

"What!" Naruto yelled in outrage, "Why?"

"**Well you didn't stop and look around, so you missed the small group of enemy jounin who were escorting your target. If you're not going to take this seriously I'm just going to stop wasting my time. What did you do wrong?**"

"Um, I didn't scout?"

"**Don't ask me! Tell me! So….You didn't scout and ended up dead. What are you going to do now?**"

"Er, scout the area, okay I've spotted the jounin, they're a ways away, but not far enough that they were that easy to spot. I can't rush the target, so I'm gonna sneak up on him," Naruto stopped at the tsking noise being emitted by his guest. "What now!"

"**You're dead again, you didn't spot the traps they'd set up,**" Kyubi yelled gleefully.

"Damn it this is stupid! How can I find the traps? It's not like I could see them, this is all in your head. I can't complete a mission like this, I've got no way of finding anything out until after you kill me because I 'missed' something!"

"**Well hallelujah, the kit is learning. That's right, you couldn't finish this mission like this. I suppose we'll finish it later after I figure out a few things. In the meantime I can teach you a basic survival technique I used when I was a kit. Interested?" **

"Of course I'm interested, so what are you gonna teach me?" Naruto gave a fox like grin as he stepped out of the wrecked building and began walking towards Sakura and Sasuke

"**Watch what I do,**" Naruto didn't get it for a while but just when he was about to yell at the dumb fox he felt a slight change in the chakra around them. Focusing a little more he discovered that the fox had overlaid the entire area with a thin veil of its chakra.

"What are you doing? I can feel your chakra, but what's it actually doing?"

"**Good question, the technique is called 'Spiders web', and just like the name implies it tells you when something is approaching, but only if it has the ability to use chakra.**"

"That sounds pretty useful, so how far can it reach?" He'd given up when he got out to a couple hundred metres but felt it stretching out beyond where he'd stopped.

"**I can sense up to a kilometre with the limitations the seal places on me,**" the fox stopped speaking suddenly as something entered the field of chakra, then another and another until there were eight distinctly powerful chakra sources heading towards them. "**Naruto, you need to make a clone to send out to your team-mates. Don't argue, just do it, tell it that we'll meet your team at the place where your sensei fought the man with the sword,**" Naruto was about to protest when he caught the urgency of the Kyubi's voice, "**and then head for the treeline to our right. Hurry, there's not much time.**"

"But…"

"**Less talking more running,**" Naruto ran through the forest as silently as he could for a minute or two, "**You can stop now, this is far enough away.**"

"You gonna explain?"

"**Two units of powerful ninja were about to arrive,**" Kyubi said.

"But that's the ANBU we're waiting for! What am I doing running from them?"

"**You might be right, but are you willing to take a chance they aren't like the first team that showed up?**"

"Oh yeah," Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

/ Gato's compound \

Sakura watched the clone as it approached while the real Naruto bolted for the trees and wondered just what he was playing at. Looking over to Sasuke she noted that he looked just as perplexed as she was so no answers from that quarter. The clone was only twenty feet away when its eyes widened and Sakura noted that there was a presence directly behind her. Whirling around while unsheathing her purloined blade there was a distinctive clang as a second sword of slightly longer design flickered into sight and disappeared just as quickly once its work was done.

Sakura looked up surprised that someone had been able to block her strike, she'd been able to inflict injury almost at will since she'd first picked up the blade and now she'd met someone who could nonchalantly block or evade her attack? Whoever the person was had dark purple hair of indeterminate length, and a body that gave hints that the person was a woman, but those were the only hints she could get, she couldn't even see the persons eyes in the shadow of the mask she wore.

"Feisty little kitten aren't we?" the woman asked mockingly her hand still grasping the hilt of her sword. "You been playing with that toy for long?"

"Uh, no," she managed intelligently, "Just since yesterday." She could almost sense the eyebrows rising on the taller woman as surprise set in. Sakura also noted the other ANBU around the clearing

"I see. I take it you're all that's left of Team 7?"

"Um, yeah. Just me, Sasuke and Naruto," she pointed at them in turn.

"So where's Naruto? Even I can tell that's a clone, a good one but still a clone."

"Er, he ran off just before you guys arrived." Sakura was still curious about why he'd done tht and was hoping that the lady wouldn't ask her, and knowing that it was a fruitless request.

"And why would he run off?"

Both of the remaining members of team 7 froze as they tried to figure out how to explain Naruto's current behaviour but were saved from having to as the clone stepped forward.

"I think I can explain," it said as the ANBU stared at it, clones weren't supposed to have this level of autonomy, not even shadow clones, "Ya see I was working on an idea I had for an early warning system, when we felt you guys coming we felt it might be best to get out of here and figure out if you were like the last squad that came through."

"Okay now I know I need an explanation. What other squad?"

"Um, you ain't gonna get mad are you?"

"I can't make any promises but if you haven't done anything wrong, then no, I won't get mad," she almost smirked as the clone sighed in relief, she had to meet the person who could put so much of himself into his clones and not lose himself.

"Well, er, you know how we sent a message to the Hokage? Well we were told to expect out relief to arrive in about twelve hours, which was two hours ago. About an hour ago another clone spotted a group of what looked like ANBU hunter-nin coming across the bridge. When they stopped they asked who I was and then killed the clone…"

"You're sure they were from Konoha?"

"They were caught in that big explosion, their bodies should be somewhere around. Anyway, the boss was safe and knew someone was trying to kill him, but after awhile they attacked Gato's base," the clone looked around for a moment at the destruction.

The leader of the relief force turned to her second, "Spread out, if there's any evidence we're going to have to make sure it gets back to headquarters. So any ideas why they came here?"

"We figured they were trying to destroy the base, we just couldn't figure out why," Sasuke continued.

"Looks like they did a pretty good job of it whatever their intentions," she noted. She'd keep her suspicions to herself for the moment, a genin team didn't need to know that there might be traitors in the upper echelons of Konoha's military.

"Um, nope, that was my fault. See they were trying to burn down the building and we had all this dust…"

"Let me guess, you dropped it into the courtyard and boom," like the rest of her teams she'd noted the scattered stonework of the outer defences, it had been an impressive explosion but she was sure that the team that arrived before them couldn't have been Konoha hunter-nin since no self respecting ANBU team would be caught by such a simple trap. 'So either impostors posing as ANBU or….,' the woman gave up, she had other priorities at this time and now was not the time to be making assumptions. When they had more evidence they'd decide what to do.

"We'll put all this aside for the moment, you can give a full report to the Hokage when you get back to the village. Onto more important things, where's Zabuza?"

"Er, he left yesterday after we sent the message," Sakura admitted apologetically.

"Hmm, maybe you'd better make a brief report to me then, it seems we're missing a lot of strategically important information." To be honest she was a bit miffed that they'd come all this way to deal with an A class missing nin that was, well missing, again. Sasuke briefly explained how the current situation had evolved.

"So you're basically saying there's nothing for us to do?"

"Um, yes?" Sasuke gulped nervously, knowing that it wasn't a good idea to waste ANBU's time, they had more important things to do.

"Ah well, it can't be helped," the leader of the squad sighed and then laughed at the surprised look on the boys face. "Listen kid, one of the first things you learn out in the field is that situations change. You either deal with it or let it get to you. Personally I prefer to deal, now since we're basically here guarding a bunch of villagers I'd like you to take a message back with you," taking out a scroll she scribbled for a few moments and then sealed it, "Now whatever you do don't try and open this scroll. The self destruct seal has a blast radius of about fifteen feet. Understand?"

All three members of Team 7 nodded nervously as Sasuke took the scroll gingerly.

"Now scram, the sooner you get gone the sooner we'll be able to get all this sorted out." She watched for a moment as the two real members of the team made their way from the clearing while the clone simple dispersed, looking around further she found her own teams executing a search pattern looking for the bodies. Sighing in resignation she moved to join them.

/ Naruto – site of first Zabuza battle \

Naruto sat with his eyes closed, it wasn't a particularly good idea for a ninja in as much trouble as he was but it certainly made the new technique he was learning easier. "So am I doing it right?"

"**Nearly, you just have to work on extending it out past fifty feet now to make it useful,**" Kyubi stated as he watched Naruto form his first stable web of chakra, of course fifty feet was nothing to the average ninja who could throw a kunai two hundred feet with excellent accuracy, they might not get a killing shot but you wouldn't be happy. He'd been at it for nearly half an hour now and had made good progress in that time, he'd also noted the dispersal of his clone so knew that the others were on their way so it was no surprise when twenty minutes later he felt the approach of Sasuke and Sakura.

"Well we're here, now where's the dobe?" Sasuke stopped for a slight breather under the tree Naruto was currently resting against, about forty feet up and able to see a surprising distance through the light foliage.

"Yeah! After all that fuss and we still beat him here," Sakura chimed in.

"Heh, who beat who here? I've just been relaxing waiting for you slowpokes." Naruto declared as he landed behind Sakura.

"Heeeee! (shing)" Sakura whirled around in shock blade moving to take the interlopers head only to have Naruto reach in lazily and grasp her hand where it held the hilt of her sword stopping it long before it became a danger.

"Nice reaction time Sakura," he smirked as she frowned at him.

"Quit playing around you two, we've got a lot of distance to cover," Sasuke glared at the two as he led the way towards Tsunami's house and a boat to the mainland

/ To be continued \

Authors notes:- I've probably got a lot of people wondering about the first ANBU team, don't worry, explanations on the way in the next few chapters.

A small clarification on Naruto's current power level, due to the changes wrought in him by overloading on Kyubi's chakra his healing factor has managed to warp Naruto's body into Hanyou(half demon/half human) so that he can better deal with Kyubi's chakra in the future. This will allow him to use up to four tails without strain instead of the one he could use in the Land of Waves arc. As a bonus his own chakra has changed to the more potent form of Youkai, and since his chakra coils have been beefed up he has nearly three tails of his own. The colour of Naruto's chakra will remain blue though as he isn't evil or enraged.


End file.
